PS 

2729 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^ 



Chap, i^ a.-^-7..S/9 
she/f ^7? '7.'3-'p7 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^ 



/ 



THE PRESS'' 



VAMPIRE PRESS/' 



IN THREE PARTS. 



INVOCATION OF ''THE PRESS." 
I. " VAMPIRE JOURNALISM." 
II. ''VAMPIRE EDITORS." 
III. "THE TIME-HONORED PRESS." 





/^ <i 


/by f 




J 


i'W. 


ROG 

OF 


ERS 


PARTHHNON 


HEIGHTS 


, BLADENSBURG, MARYLAND. 






1889. 








<S5 





^ THE LARK AND MONKEY. 

We publish herewith, as a kind of preface to the satire 
given, the last letter of a pleasant correspondence between 
the author and " The "World " — a kind of " parrot and 
monkey" aflair — or, rather, lark and monkey — the author and 
Pulitzer: 

AsTOR House, Sept. 1st, 1889. 

Sir — You charge me with stealing an envelope, from the 
Government, and compare my " Pan Electric Company," to 
the " Tweed Ring." The Washington Post^ ever courteous 
to the " craft," but scornful of '' vampire journalism," will 
explain the first charge. 

MR. ROGERS RESENTS AN IMPERTINENCE. 

Editor Post : When such journals as the New York World 
and the New York Star tr}- to destroy an unpretending citizen, 
it does seem to me that such licentiousness of individual editors, 
invading the sanctity of private life, should be held up by the 
better portion of the press in the light which it deserves. 

The case is simply this : I wrote a letter to the New York 
World complaining of a elur which it had published in regard to 
my son's inventions, and employed a typewriter to copy it in the 
office of Mr. Herbert Smith, examiner in chancery, of this city. 
The typewriter had the envelope to which these editors refer, the 
ordinary Congressional envelope, and placed my communication 
within it. Of course I had no reason to suspect anything im- 
proper, since Congressmen are entitled to about three hundred 
dollars' worth of stationery, which, after they draw it, is Govern- 
ment property in no sense whatever, and may be burnt up or used 



like other individual property, as they may determine. But lo, 
and behold! the World's editorial on the 4th August, and the 
Stars of the 5th, denounced me as defrauding the Government in 
using stationery with the words " House of Representatives! 
U S.," upon it. Because, forsooth, I permitted the type-writer to 
enclose my letter in what was doubtless his own property. I 
would thank you to notice the matter, as such licentiousness of 
the press concerns the public at large, the press itself, and possibly 
those editors may have the manliness to undo what they have 
done. J. W. Rogers. 

Parthenon Heights, Md., Aug. 5, 1889. 

As regards " The Pan Electric Company,"! see no likeness 
whatever in this enterprise to Tweed's peculations in New 
York, changing the vouchers, by forgery, or collusion with 
the Comptroller, and pocketing twenty million dollars. If I 
had done that, you would be now my most loving friend. 
True, large blocks of stock were given, by me, and my son 
Harry, the inventor, to develope and utilize about twenty 
patents, in every branch of electricity. It is equally true, 
that Attorney General Garland, Senator Harris and Honor- 
able Casey Young were accused of getting up a Government 
"job" to assist the enterprise, but no one believed, after a 
full investigation by Congress — or even hinted, so far as I 
know, that General Johnston, Hon. J. D. C. Atkins, ray son, 
or myself had anything to do with this ''job." In point of 
fact, Hon. Casey Young, when under oath, before the Con- 
gressional Committee (being at the time, my worst — perhaps 
my only enemy in the wide world) declared that " had there 
been a Government job," " we would never have told the 
Rogerses, for they would blab it out on the house-tops." 

Such was mine enemy's estimate of my son, and myself — 
too frank and ingenuous to conceal any trickery for a moment. 

If we " bribed " anybody, as you say, the law in Washing- 



ton is very stringent, and can now be enforced. Suppose, O 
pious and patriotic reformer, that you should institute pro- 
ceedings against us. Our courts are open, and I dare you to 
proceed, or stand convicted of a heartless slander! Your 
dear friend, Stilson Hutchins, editor of the Washington Post^ 
before it went into better hands, published the charge of 
" bribery," but refused me space, as you have lately done, 
to answer him. Now, lo and behold ! M'hile 1 am writing 
this love letter to my monkey, in comes a friend with 
the following account of your dear friend's manipulations in 
London ! His Parliamentarians, whom he " bribed," as you 
would say, have all deserted, but mine hung on "like grim 
death " — are holding on still, " like snapping turtles," and 
will do so, doubtless, until it thunders, next equity term, 
when I hope to shake them off, and recover my son's patents. 
The London dispatch about your dear friend — is as 
follows. Now don't say that he " bribed " the whole Par- 
liament of Great Britain, by distributing the stock among 
the promoters, for in all probability he gave them blocks of 
stock, for the legitimate use of their names and influence, as 
we did, and as good men have been doing, from time im- 
memorial, when a new enter43rise came up to be floated, 
before any certain or fixed value could be placed on its inter- 
ests. The London dispatch reads (as Attorney General 
Garland would say) " thusly " : 

HUTCHINS' SCHEME TO UNLOAD LIKELY TO BE 
A FAILURE. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY WHICH EXPLODED THE 
TYPE-SETTING MACHINE. 

A London dispatch to the Washington Press says that the 
English investor has been excited a good deal the past week by 
an attempt to get £1,000,000 from him for the great type-setting 



6 

macliine wliicli has been dubbed the Lineotjpe, and the public 
have been asked to subscribe the abovenamed amount to make 
the thing go. But at the last moment it leaks out that one Cot- 
tam, a notorious promoter of bubble companies, is at the back of 
it. Then it is shown that of the million, the promoters and 
venders were to take £820,000. Many papers consequently go 
for the company on one pretext or another. 

Dr. Cameron, member of Parliament for Glasgow, who was vice- 
chairman, declined to remain on the board, and now Louis G. 
Jennings, M. P., who is at present acting as jackal to Lord Ran- 
dolph Churchill, also comes off the board. The Lineotype does 
not look healthy at present, and the overweighting of this com- 
pany is sure to have a prejudicial effect upon other new enter- 
prises brought here from the United States. 

This is unfortunate for the American stockholder, who relied 
on Hutchins' sagacity to relieve the depressed market for the 
stock on this side. The English investor possibly has learned of 
the unsuccessful operation of the machine in New York and 
Washington, and are not to be caught by Hutchins and his pro- 
moters. The long-suffering American stockholder will have to 
grin and bear it. 

What do you think of that? See also the New York 
World. Did you ever hear of %uch a journal ? See its arti- 
cle from your ovs^n Bureau about the time you purloined 
and published my private correspondence. Your own article 
readeth thusly : 

"POET ROGERS AND HIS SON. 

"the creators and organizers of the pan-electkic 
business. 

"A sketch of the Man who Writes Poetry but Never Lies— The Genius 

who Invented the Pan-Electric Telephone — Parthenon Heights and 

Its Interesting History — A House Once Occupied by Lafayette. 

" Dr. J. W. Rogers, the hero of the Pan-Electric Telephone Com- 
pany, has been described by many newspaper writers as an igno- 



rant man and a crank. He is an educated man, and comes of as 
good family as any one in the South.. Dr. Rogers is a graduate of 
Princeton College. He was graduated in the class with Frank 
Blair. He is very eccentric and perhaps visionary in his financial 
ideas, but upon general topics he is as interesting a talker as any 
of his Southern associates. He keeps up with all the modern 
newspaper literature, and, aside from his weakness for writing 
poetry, is very coherent and logical-minded. He is a man in the 
neighborhood of fifty years of age. (Here comes a fine likeness 
of your " Lark," but we have no cut to reproduce it.) He has a 
long head, set oflf by a thick mass of long, carelessly-combed hair 
and a heavy, brownish black mustache and beard, slightly 
sprinkled with gray. The doctor's forehead is high and broad, 
his nose is straight, and his complexion that of a man who lives 
well. His eyes are very dark and glow with an intense light 
when excited. Each eye has the appearance of a star against a 
gleaming background of black velvet. The doctor is expansive, 
fond of good fellowship, and, as he himself says, occasionally 
takes a drop too much. There is one thing about the Doctor 
which should stand to his everlasting credit, and that is that he 
tells no lies. Not a single statement of his concerning the Pan- 
Electric Company has been denied. The Doctor is a man of great 
imagination. He has lived a« life of dreams. When he found 
that he had in his own family an inventor and a child of rare 
gifts, he naturally was inclined to make the most of him, 

J. Harris Rogers, the inventor, is in the ne;ghbordood of twenty- 
eight or thirty years of age. He is tall and slim, with a large 
head, something the shape and type of Poe's. His forehead is 
very broad and high, his eyes are deep set, his nose is straight, 
while bis thin-lipped mouth is shaded by a light brown mustache. 
The lower part of his angular face is smooth shaven. J. Harris 
Rogers was educated in London and Paris. He has a good repu- 
tation as an electrical expert, and was the special protege of Prof. 
Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution. Young Rogers has a per- 
fect dignity of manner, and one of the most musical of voices. 
He is the very opposite of his father. He is as reserved and cool 



8 

as his father is expansive and excitable. He is one of those types 
of young' men who are not found outside of the South. He is 
mild-mannered, quiet, almost meek in appearance. A man wha 
would never provoke a quarrel, but who would not walk one inch 
out of his way to avoid one. In peace he is dove-like ; in a quar- 
rel he is tigerish. His devotion to his father is one of the most 
marked traits of his character. The two are almost inseparable. 
They never act without consulting each other, and if they ever 
want to have a jolly time they go out together instead of hunt- 
ing up strangers. J. Harris Rogers has undoubted talents, and if 
his father had placed him in the hands of Northern business men 
instead of Southern statesmen he would have undoubtedly real- 
ized much more satisfactory results. Those who expect anything 
foolish or illogical from either one of them will be mistaken. 
When they come to tell the history of this company and its rami- 
fications they will tell a plain connected story and will be able ta 
substantiate every part thereof." — N. Y. World. 

I say " Yampire," were these men, whom jou then praised, 
the counterpart of William M. Tweed, as you now declare ? 
Can a vile traducer blush ? O, thou " Glass of reformation 
and public charity," can you blush for shame? 

Is it true Pulitzer, as the New York Herald charges, July 
25th, 1888, that you sell your reading columns for pay — cor- 
rupting literature and government — that you lied to get up 
sensations, coined bogus interviews with the archbishop, dis- 
tressed mothers and wives by your " aqueduct falsehood," and 
at last sunk so low as to publish diphtheria at a watering 
place, to extort one thousand dollars for recalling the report? 
Is mine a similar instance ? What are the facts in the case ? 
Your accomplished reporter, Mr. Cohen, came to our office of 
" visual synchronism," then 135 Broadway, New York, and 
unfolding your great " TFoWc^," "a very small ear of corn" 
(as Mr. Lincoln said of Alexander Stephens, wrapped up in 



9 

a big overcoat) — "A very small ear of corn in a big shuck."' 
Cohen, unfolding your " Big Shuck," displayed splendid pic- 
tures of an enterprise in Richmond, Virginia, vt^hich you, poor 
Yampire, had illustrated— ^b/'^izy — ^^ your reading columiis. 
Of course, simple gulls, wishing to buy stock and acquainted 
with your boasted fairness, would naturally suppose that 
so great a philanthropist as " The Lark's Monkey " would 
not publish but from disinterested motives any commenda- 
tions in his reading columns to aid tlie public in forming a 
just conclusion ; but lo, and behold ! Mr. Cohen told us that 
they had paid you $2,000/(97' this '■^Joh,^'' and that you would 
give our enterprise a "send off" for a similar amount. We 
declined your honorable (?) generosity. Then commenced 
your Billingsgate. Pardon me, ye venerable crones, of long- 
tongue memory, for comparing you to Pulitzer — I mean no 
disrespect ; for ye shine above him, as stars that look down 
upon a brothel ! Did you expect, poor monkey, merely to be 
revenged, or to whip me into traces, as you did the watering 
place? Did you, O, curious creature, expect to terrify me? 
What, one to the manor born, who owned before Mr. Lin- 
coln's emancipation proclamation nearly 200 such chaps as- 
you — all your betters ! 

Your surfaces perhaps, were not the same. 

Yet all were negroes — negroes — but in name, 

They good negroes — learn the truth, my lad. 

You were the meanest one I ever had. 

Pardon poor darkies ! for ye loved me so — 

My father's household in the long ago. 

Pardon ! " black mammy " — pardon ! " Uncle Ned " — 

That I should put Pulitzer in your bed ! 

For ye were always decent — neat and clean, 

Tho' born to slav'ry — never low nor mean. 

Not one of all your kindred ever slept 

In cotton sheds, or carried things that crept ! 



10 



Dr. , who would shudder if he saw his name now 

with Pulitzer's, took him from among the trarcps, of a 
cotton shed in St. Louis, dressed him up in "slop-shop" cloth, 
ing, and introduced him (for the first time in Pulitzer's life) 
to gentlemen — they helped him start a paper. He em- 
ployed writers with brain, appealed to the slums — was so vio- 
lent in his abuse, that one of his subs, shot down in his 
office a gentleman, who had been abused. Pulitzer was so 
scorned by decent people, for the vulgarity of his paper, that 
he sought a bigger city, with more slums ! for he could no 
more live in a pure atmosphere, than a snake could in 
Ireland. 



1 



11 



INVOCATION. 

From the New York World. 

(" Dr. Rogers is a graduate of Princeton College. He was 
graduated in the class with Frank Blair, and aside from his 
weakness for writing poetry, is very coherent and logical 
minded.") 

Mirabile dictu : "A Daniel come to judgment ! " What 
kind of a thing is this exhausting himself, to eulogize his 
master ? Did you purloin my private letters, and publish . 
them to make money ? What can such a thing know about 
poetry ? 

From Jones' Paper, the New York Times. 

" Pan Electric Rogers has sent us a poem. We beg to be 
excused. Weather too warm to read it." 

O Jones, Jones ! Jones ! your very name smells of Mug- 
wump poetry ! O Pan Electric Jones ! you accused your 
brethren — editors at large — of being " bribed " by the Bell 
Company, but they brought out the proof, during the Pan 
Electric investigation, that you alone had received money, 
for your publications from the Bell Company, and the dirty 
" cat's paw," or "stool pigeon " Benthysen ? What can such 
a thing know about poetry? All your brethren of the press 
have dubbed you Ananias ! 

New York Sun. 

(" We have never imbibed any great admiration for the 
poets of Parthenon.") 

O Dana! Dana! Dana! the classic! the ancient! the 
grand ! you don't know how it hurts me, to bunk you with 



12 

such fellows as Jones and Pulitzer ! " Imbibed ! " how- 
classic ! how elegant ! Some young Daniel, in your office, 
perhaps. Was it Charley ? 

Immortal Poe ! look down upon this throng, 
And wonder that you lingered here so long ! 
Were these the things, to listen to your lyre, 
Or catch from God's own heart celestial jSre ? 
You felt its flash — reflected as you sang, 
And the sweet strain along a desert rang. 
Till Pallas' bust, that awful raven bore. 
And whispered to your spirit, " never more ! " 
Alas, 'twas echoed from a distant shore — 
Fell with thy falling tears, O, lovely Leonore ! 

Poe was yet living, fed on husks and rue, 
When Lilliputians lauded Eugene Sue ; 
His wife a wanderer! see his darling roam — 
A poet's wife, without a friend or home ; 
Peddling his songs, at almost any price, 
Fresh from the battlements of Paradise! 
Alas, the Bard ! A legend tells that Eve, 
Tho' lost her Paradise, had ceased to grieve. 
For heaven in mercy, took from memory's store, 
Each thing of beauty that the garden bore ; 
Till mournful toil, with heavy hand and slow, 
To grief accustomed, ceased to feel its woe. 
Each, infant born, the mother on it smiled. 
As tho' no curse had visited her child ; 
But one at last, a poet on her breast. 
She clasped more tenderly, with tears caressed ; 
With breaking heart, beheld its eager eyes. 
And saw the waving trees of paradise ! 
So Edgar's mother |gazing on her child. 
Saw Paradise, but Paradise a wild ; 



His hearthstone shattered and a friendless pair, 

In the lone valley of a world's despair ; 

Saw her own image, and with stifled cry. 

Turned from that eden in her Edgar's eye! 

Homer and Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton, all 

Whose monuments have seen the kingdom's fall. 

Without a tomb or tear, despised and poor — 

Heard the wolf barking at the poet's door ! 

While other things — Pulitzer's — Jones's size, 

Were "passion flowers," and lauded to the skies! 

Then come, ye poets ! O ye mothers look 

Propitiously and 8mile^^pon my book; 

But heaven forbid, if you approve my lays. 

That Jones should read or vile Pulitzer praise! 

No muse descend to smile upon my song; 

Columbia's Press shall bear the strain along ; 

Or found unworthy, bury at her door. 

Where many a bantling sleeps forevermore — 

Door of the morning whence her eagles fly, 

To sweep the earth, and mingle with the sky — 

Unnumbered eagles, glorious as the stars, 

Lighting Columbia's banner in her wars. 

Or brooding peaceful — guarding every spot — 

And shrieking to the foeman," Touch, O, Touch me not! " 

Freedom's Great Press ! Behold yon vulgar things. 

Clad in your plumage, apeing e'en your wings, 

Yultures tartarian, with Pulitzer's nose ; 

O, strike them down and all their filth disclose. 

No other land your own — O, look abroad, 

And see yon journals trembling at a word ! 

London's great Times — Her Puck, this very hour, 

Voting a Princess millions for her dower — 

Dreading their masters — Yea; a woman there — 

Let them but beard Her, if the bravest dare ! 



14 

But see ! Columbia holds you to Her breast 
Dear as the flowers of Her own wild West ; 
Hark to yon screaming eagle, as he flies, 
Your own bright counterpart in stormy skies ! 
Samoa heeds him — Bismarck listens well, 
And hears his boasted prestige sigh, " Farewell ! "* 
O'er Behring's Straits, from Sitka's barren strand. 
The rocks repeat to every sea and land — 
Each tyrant's hate — the Nation's bitterness, 
Proclaim the glory of Columbia's Press — 
" The meanest rill — the mightiest river 
Rolls mingling with its fame forever V" 
All feel its power and behold with awe, 
A Majesty that gives the sword to law,f 
Or stays its fury, when about to slay, 
And holds it palsied in the light of day. 
Or grasps corruption, writhing in Her hand, 
When " Trusts " combine to desolate the land ; 
Strikes the "Monopoly," as "Vampires" ply, 
And hurls upon it lightning from the sky ; 
Makes home more sacred, life of loftier worth, 
And stands a sentinel at every hearth, 
Protecting virtue, plucking slander's tongue. 
And hurling back the lies its venom flung, 
Crushing the " Yan;pire" — living on thro' time — 
A thing of earth, and yet like heaven sublime ! 

*Tlie N. Y. Star, always behiud, discovers Septduber 2d, that Bismarck 
yielded to America, 

t Frank Hattou, of the WasLington Post, thus puts it, in his own felici- 
tous style : " There is no law to compel concessions of capital, nor are 
there any means of forcing labor. Compulsion is impossible, violence is 
folly, but there is a steady growth of public sentiment in the right direc- 
tion, which, if encouraged, will make it an impossible thing for thousands 
of men to stand on the brink of starvation in a prosperous country while 
they are ready and willing to work." 



15 

With no respect of persons, State or kin, 

Her plumes all dashing with the battle's din ; 

First on the field — first ready for the fight, 

Her sword the rainbow, and Her pass-word, " Right ! " 

Then mark your mission, O, ye men of mind. 

To bless your land and elevate mankind ; 

Pursue your path, among the homes of men, 

And prove the sword less mighty than the pen ; 

Thro' peace and war — in glory or distress. 

Make nations feel the power of The Press! 

Yon President upon his lofty seat. 

The dealer peddling on the poorest street ; 

Each infant feels it, as its tiny hand 

Wings the wild lightning o'er his native land ; 

Her men behold it, and would guard the Press — 

Freedom's great fortress and her mightiness ! 

Her women feel it, watching for the while. 

With heaving bosom and approving smile. 

O, guard her purity, what e'er the storm. 

Shelter, ye wings, Columbia's sacred form ! 

Rise, rise, great eagles ! strike each vulgar head, 

And tear away from virtue's snow-white bed ; 

Beat with your wings Columbia's vilest frauds, 

Pimping for " trusts " and " literary hawds?'* 

O, strike to H 1 the .whole degenerate race, 

Or give them all Pulitzer's horrid face 

To warn mankind — their characters disclose, 

Outspoken in the vulture's filthy nose; 

Or name them Godkin, that the good may fly 

From hawks and vultures as they taint the sky ; 

Or Jones, or Sheppard,* that the very name 

*A Western View op Brother Shepard. — Sheppard brays like an 
ass, merely to make a loud noise, like an ass. With one amateur of this 
kind on band, there is a general feeling among editors that no similar speci- 



16 

"May mantle virtue with a blush of shame! 

For not the minstrel only — every sphere — 

Each form of life, e'en liome and country dear 

Are now at stake — their foe, " The Yampire Press," 

And conscious right stands trembling in her nothingness ; 

Yirtue sits impotent, and vice supreme 

Kules with a golden rod, this passing dream. 

Pulitzers rule — their time and talents give 

To any humbug, emptier than a sieve; 

Delude the public and their friends betray, 

Swearing by heaven they never write for "j^ay,"* 

This rule once broken, like a mighty flood 

The ghouls come forth to feed on flesh and blood. 

" The Trust," " Combine," " Plutocrary " and " Place," 

'Confront society with brazen face, 

'Contemn the law, defy it more and more ; 

Unite the rich and feed upon the poor. 

'The Queen of letters, lofty and serene, 

Falls from her throne, to grovel with the mean ; 

False standards rise, the passions of mankind 

Excluding virtue and a sense refined. 

An angel's lyre were trampled in the dust 

By mammon dancing, hand in hand with lust ; 

'The fountain poisoned, homely pleasures pall, 

And virtue trembles, as her temples fall ! 

No home is sacred, and a deadly stream 

Creeps to the bower of beauty in her dream ; 

Or rather serpents, writhing up from hell. 

Till love and home and country sigh " farewell ! " 

Buying a column there, what e'er betide — 

Slander comes cree])ing to Pulitzers' side, 

men should climb over the high fence of capital into the fold of journ- 
alism. — Chicago Herald, Sept. 1st. 

*Never print a paid advertisement as news matter. Let every advertise- 
ment appear as an advertisement — no sailing under false colors. — Charles A. 
Dana's Address to the Wisconsin Editorial Association, Mihoaukee, July 24, '88. 



17 



While honor slandered, asks the thief in vain 
For a small space, to take away the stain. 
Behold his power — a monarch in his cell, 
Safe as the devil on his throne in hell — 
Safe as the " Yampire," passion's filthy slave. 
Or " Jack the Ripper," hiding in a grave ! 
The villain gloats ; the ghoulish coward knows 
That arms are impotent, and useless, blows, 
Defames his victim, revels in the crime. 
And crawls along with serpents in their slime ; 
But thus I meet him with a feeble hand, 
And ask an audience of my native land ; 
Tho' rude my verse, 'tis virtue's lofty chime, 
Honor's last hope upon the shores of time ! 
Then come, my countrymen, and bear along, 
'Tis yours, my own, and sad Columbia's song ! 



18 



lE^'.iL.I^T I- 



RANAE ULULANT. 
PUERI JACTANT. 

Far from the babylon of business strife. 
In dull monotony and country life, 
I wrote a poera once — or rather rhymes. 
To pass away the dullness of the times. 
Not a great epic, but a farmer's song, 
To the four seasons as they rolled along.* 
Critics rose smiling, for the little things 
Are always happy when a rustic sings ; 
As urchins on the street have by- words pat, 
To satirize his trousers' or his hat. 
" Shoot it ! " they cry ; yet see him pass along^ 
Working his lips, still echoing to his song ; 
Perhaps emboldened on some lonely street, 
One drops a fizzling cracker at his feet. 
But now he throws a penny to the boy — 
See how the little rascal leaps for joy ! 
All pufi" around him, like the cracker's fuse. 
Kneel at his feet, and vie to black his shoes. 
Thus, for a gift — perhap, a glass of wine — 
Critics pronounce the dullest song divine, 
If Harper publish and the bantling nurse. 
Its merits rise proportioned to his purse — 
Fifty editions fly, where fashion rules, 
And even Harper giggles at the fools ! 

* Parthenon. 



19 



But mine unguilded, and at random thrown, 
Plain as a country maiden in her gown, 
Provoked a smile, and every little ass 
Brayed like a trumpet as he saw it pass. 
The " Vampire Press,^^ in labor every night, 
Pained to deliver ere the morning light, 
Scanned first its progeny, exclaiming, " Mine " ! 
And licked for joy each newly littered line. 
Licked with a parent's love the filthy thing- 
Dearest the part that quivered with a sting — 
Glanced at my title page, and threw it by 
To gaze upon the kennel or the sty. 
But some were meaner, keeping out of sight, 
They bayed the moon, yet trembled at her light. 
So curs go barking as the moon goes down. 
Silvering the very cloud she leaned upon. 
Apollo hailed her, and the stars were sent 
To lift triumphal arches as she went — 
Kissing her bridal curtains with delight. 
And smiling as she sunk into the arms of night; 
But the vile kennel, tho' it smell to heaven. 
Knew nothing of the beauty she had given. 
The Slar, the World, the Times — E'en Dana flew 
To tell what every fool or farmer knew — 
That " Tales are more at home when dressed in prose, 
" Poems less popular than Barnum's shows ; 
"And sorrow sure to fall upon the man, 
"Without a monkey or a caravan. 
<'That ' vampires' crave a passionate address, 
" Pleased in proportion to its filthiness ! 
" That songs lascivious fill them with delight, 
"As owls and kangaroos the shades of night." 



20 



Great Paul De Coque, and wild Amelie please, 

In every song that putrifies the breeze ; 

But sing a strain that only angels sing, 

And the vile satyrs mock your trembling string. 

" Excelsior," they cry, " and poor Evangelines, 

"Are only fit for maidens in their teens ! " 

From woman's purity they turn awaj'. 

As owls and satyrs from the light of day. 

Sing the pure man, and instantly they cry, 

" Such a poor fool was never in our sty ; 

" Go write a book, but write it for a goat, 

" O let it have his musky beard afloat, 

*'And nannie's tail, to cover up designed — 

" But publishing her secrets to mankind. 

*' Thus write a book to lay all secrets bare, 

"A plume of glory dashing on the air. 

" This — this is genius ! for the very smell 

" Fills us with rapture — makes the wonder sell. 

" But take your nonsense — such as you have given- 

"And read it only at the gate of heaven. 

" Climb up with Wordsworth, read it to the sky, 

'• Bat keep it from the kennel and the sty ; 

" Write as Amelie does, as Zola writes, 

*' Painting the town, all naked, with its sights; 

*' Or slide, with love, upon a stack of hay,* 

" Kissing his goozle as you bound away, 

*' With Mariamne mouthing Herod's throat,f 

" With all the fervor of a fragrant goat." 

Thus may you emulate our " Passion Flowers," 
Sweeter to "Vampires" than celestial bowers ; 

*From " Quick and Dead." 
fFrom " Herod and Mariamne." 



21 

Hast seen another picture — faultless thighs,* 

And then looked up again to soft blue eyes ? 

'Twas very funny, but the world should know 

That Amily (for her mother calls her so). 

Painted her own sweet picture to display 

The very charms that others hide away.f 

Its duplicate, as looking from a stream, 

Lives on forever, like a glorious dream. 

In " Quick and Dead"— yes, "Quick"— alas, how "Deadl" 

Antonius' Chaplet, Cleopatra, on thy head. 

He was all love — hircosic love — but now 

The mummy grins ; what dust upon its brow ! 

Aldrich and Wilcox, when they dance with these. 

Of course succeed, because the passion's please ; 

So Abi Jackman ; and that nastiest thing, 

Ed. Saltus, borne upon a harpy's wing, 

His face a goat's, so full of filthy stufi". 

That e'en the brothel cries " Enough ! Enough " ! 

The nannies' bleating night provoke a smile ; 

But, O, this he-goat, capering on the stile, 

Brought by Pulitzer to the cottage pure ; 

Who twists his tail, to make the bleating lure ;:{: 

Tickling the skin, they scratch mankind below, 

And move such passions as the vulgar know. 

*Sacl was the fate of Mary's lamb, 
We saw Pulitzer mix her 
All up into a mutton jam, 
For Brown-Sequard's elixir. 

— Detroit Tribune. 
t This wild, but gifted girl painted her nude picture once, and took a 
aiugular delight in showing it to the preachers. 

JPulitzer, August 4th, 1889, atfects to criticise harshly a lot of nasty 
books, but is really boosting them by showing the basest sort of obscene 
pictures, telling the public, while he helps to sell, that they must not be 
hung up in churches. 



22 

Go try it on the belly of a hog, 

Aad down he sinks as listless as a log.* 

These witty women know that men are brutes, 

Only another kind of " Pig in Boots." 

Excite their passions, but despise each runt, 

Expressing admiration in a grunt. 

Such praise disgusting — for they know full well 

What echo answers from the gate of hell. 

That woman prostituted, angels weep, 

E'en for the body plunging to the deep ; 

But o'er her, prostituted soul, what lightnings leap, 

What earthquake shocks, what thunders shake the sky, 

When woman's soul despises purity ! 

Stay, stay, ye Muses ! tell iis — who are these 

" Yampires that putrify the very breeze ? " 

Of them are Godkin, Jones — God save the mark ! 

The ghoul Pulitzer, pimping in the dark ! 

Sheppard, Shank-Spitser, and a host of things,! 

Mean as Pulitzer, but without his wings; 

His harpy claws, and filthy beak appear 

On crawling worms — O, wait to see them here ! 

Tho' not a " vampire " in the viler sense, 
Dana, but lately, gave his pounds for pence — 
A life of glory — for a golden bribe. 
And sunk from heaven — to Pulitzer's tribe, 
Forgot all decency, and fell below 
The God-like Dana, of the long ago ? 
No wonder Sheppard, and Pulitzer praise 
At seventy, and wish him length of days ! 

*City people may not kuow that a pig being scratched on his belly, sinks 
to the ground, and grunts his gratitude. 

t The New York Star (Aug. 22, 1889) starts a very pretty controversy 
as to whether Edgar Saltus has made f 1,500 or $15,000 by his brothel 
publications. Poor Shank Spitser 1 



23 

For eacli new convert has peculiar charms, 

And even cynics take liim to their arms ; 

As Byron said, (to past transgressions blind) 

^'A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind ! " 

Look down ye angels — thro' the putrid air, 

And guide the Muses — is it Dana there? 

Dana who never prints, (he swears by heaven ;) 

Advertisements, where reading should be given — 

But lo his columns ever puffing up 

Amelie's filth, lascivious as her pup; 

Of course all truth, for simpletons must know 

That money for the puffing could not flow ! 

Go tell 't to the marines, O, glittering " Sun," 

And hide in Daphne's chimey when 'tis done ; 

But take no laurel from her heaven-kissed head, 

To decorate Apollo's lecherous bed ! 

Dana, the classic ! E'en his boyish pen 

Led me with tinkling bells along the glen ; 

Who can forget his night-fall ? bleatings there — 

The fold retreating in the star-lit air ; 

The lowing herd ; the sound of weary feet ; 

The distant horn ; the hunter's slow retreat. 

And every pleasing sound that made our childhood sweet ? 

Is this' the Dana? This the bard to praise, 

And crown Amelie, with his own bright bays ! 

Impossible! And yet " The Sun'''' must be 

Responsible for what its readers see. 

But memory lingering o'er my boyhood dear, 
I dare not use that name of glory here; 
Let Daniel be the name, some unknown x, 
A school-boy's puzzle, as his problems vex ; 
Some " Daniel come to judgment," cold and hard. 



24 

A tumbling beetle, covered with its shard !* 

Yet even Daniel was a saint to him— 

Puck's eye-glassed raven on tartarian limb ; 

Yenal as vulgar, rooting with his nose, 

The nastiest things in poetry or prose ; 

Stirring their stench, to lead the young astray, 

Seeming to blame, but praising them, "/br pay.^^ f 

Paid, by the publisher, to give the breeze, 

Whatever scents the baser passions please. 

That the young rake, and even " Passion Flowers '^ 

May take the viper to domestic bowers ! 

O, vile Pulitzer ! Hide your ghoulish head, 

Fly to the grave and feed upon the dead ; 

But spare the living — daughters, children, wives — 

And pimp no more while decency survives ! 

Even poor Lippincott, the Quaker prude. 

Found that his pious readers " Take it nude," 

As temperance lecturers, at heaven-gate, 

" Tho' drinking slyly, take their whiskey straight." 

To atone for Rieves, I sent a story once, 

All purity and beauty to the dunce; 

He conned its pages carefully, and said : 

" 'Tis beautiful, but suited to the dead." 

" My goat-like readers call for something hot, 

" Like pepper in the whiskey of a sot — 

*" The Sun," in one of its reviews of Amelia Rives' poetry— for some 
publisher doubtless — pictures a beauty with whom, says the cranky and 
blasphemous writer, God might fall in love — this article excites curiosity, 
of course, in the vulgar, by showing lascivious parts, and informs the 
reader that six dollars a line had been paid for the stuff. 

t Pulitzer, affecting severe criticism of Abbi Jackman ; and that nastiest 
of modern passion scavengers, Edgar Saltus, gives column after column of 
this filth, to attract the baser sort of people ; but never fails to publish the 
name of the publisher, that brutes who sell and buy obscene pictures may 
secure them at once. 



25 



" Have passed the stage of purity so far, 

" They crave hell-fire, — not the morning star; 

" O, keep it back — too heavenly to ' pay ' — 

" Let Gabriel publish at the Judgment Day." 

'Twas badly named, perhaps, " The Poker Chij>,^^ 

Inducing many a pious soul to sip ; 

But when they found the fragrance of the skies, 

No smell of goats, no satyr-loving eyes, 

Down, down it went with Dryden and his homilies ! '''■ 

Harper refused it, said 'twas horrid stuff" — 

Opposed to Mormons, but the friend of Blufi"" — 

And called upon the preachers, with their wives, 

To shun it, as they hoped to save their lives — 

That publicans and sinners, once so dear, 

To Him who sat among them with a tear, 

Were out in force — a regiment from hell 

In a bad book — at least it would not selW'' 

Even poor Appleton, to science given. 

Lugging his cyclopedias up to heaven. 

Refused to publish ; when the bard unknown 

Laid on a shelf, and left it all alone. 

'Twas a plain story, sweet as morning flowers, 

Offered to beauty in her morning bowers ! 

Not to the pious vulgar, but the few 

Say gentle reader, may it bloom for you ? 

Then kiss its petals, as a leaf from heaven — 

An angel's tears of rapture to it given : 

But turn sweet spirit, O in sorrow turn 

From yonder ashes left in Passion's urn — 

From Wilcox, Saltus, and Amelie — all — 

Beware the fragrance of the funeral pall ! 

And O, Columbia, hang your head for shame ! 

Nor dare to whisper Martha Custis' name. 

* Ode to St. Cecelia — " The Panther and the Hind," etc. 



26 



Spurn ! spurn the horrid things whose filthy hist 
Takes Yenus' girdle — scorning Pallas' bust ! 
O, tell it not that Orpheus' tender lute, 
May only move the passions of a brute ! 
Leading vile satyrs — pimping for the show — 
To twit the passions, as they writhe below, 
But rather like yon silvery moon in heaven, 
Let purity and light to Love be given — 
Leading Eurydice, where blossoms blow, 
The lyre exalting, from a hell below. 
Passion plods on, but O,* let Genius rise, 
To pinion Love and mount into the skies. 
Yet even there, each burning glance forego — 
Eurydice ascending from below ; 
For song had almost lifted to the sky, 
When all was lost in one devouring eye ! 
Then guard, ye publishers, Columbia's shrine. 
Four hundred years of loveliness divine ! 
Columbus comes! Behold his heart of love, 
His very name recalls the gentle dove! 
Not Venus ! No ; but pure Aphrodite 
Comes with his spirit o'er yon flowery way 
To kiss your harp and linger on its lay ; 
Rise, rise, ye poets ! Poverty despise. 
And mount with " Hail Columbia " to the skies ! 
But go ye lustful — ye whose drooping wing 
Have felt the poison of the serpent's sting. 
Nothing you know .of genius' rolling eye. 
Nor his fine phrensy revelling in the sky ! 
Homer and Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton, all, 
Whose monuments have seen the kingdoms fall, 
Without a tomb or tear, despised and poor, 
Heard the wolf barking at the poet's door, 
While other things — Pulitzers' — Daniel's size — 



27 

Were " Passion Flowers," and lauded to the skies ! 
Congreave and Gay, with Otway — every fool 
At Oxford bred — but not in nature's school, 
All poor at best, but little things like these, 

Could such a thing as Pulitzer know, when he speaks oi 
my weakness for writing poetry, whether it was poetry or 
not? Alas, for Fadladeen ! When the most exquisite of In- 
dian poets— says, Sir William Jones — had represented a bee 
as drunk with pleasure, blowing a trumpet, in the Jessa- 
mine bugles, Fadladeen suggested that it was unnatural, since 
he was blowing in the wrong end. When the bard answering 
a fool, according to his knowledge, replied, " What is more 
natural than a drunken bee to blow the wrong end of the 
horn ? 

•Daniels delight, and poor Pulitzers please ; 
Yet they were decent, in a darker age, 
(Beaumont and Fletcher yet upon the stage) 
And saw refinement, with the poet's eye, 
Bringing to earth all beauty from the sky. 
But little dreamt, when such refinement came. 
Of mountebanks, without a sense of shame — 
Oreat Yampires leading as the passions lure, 
To feed upon the beautiful and pure ; 
Pulitzers — Daniels — giving to the young, 
For angels' food, a wild hyena's dung, 
Then go ye insects — horrid incubes — 
To brothel beds — the vilest scent will please — 
But spare sweet maidenhood, the beardless boy ; 
Suck the vile blood of hags, no longer coy. 
And batten on them with lascivious joy ; 
Bloated with poison, taint the very air — 
Down ! down to h — 11, and say I sent you there 1 



28 



IP'.A.IKT ZI, 



VAMPIRE EDITORS. 

Rise ! rise Columbia ! claim your wonted fire ; 

Light without lust, to tremble from your lyre, 

Like '' Home Sweet Home ;" or Rodman, robed in stars^ 

Hailing your banner, from the field of Mars ; 

Or Key's great sunburst, " O, still does it wave, 

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ?" 

Or Morris, shouting to the woodman, " spare ! 

O, spare that tree ! my youth it sheltered there !" 

Or Ryan, flashing on his fiery car ; 

His " conquered lanner " falling like a star ; 

Timrod and Sims, great Edgar, L'Inconu ; 

Likened to his Jyre in yonder sky of blue. 

Marco Bozzaris hears your Halleck sing — 

Or rather thunder from his eagle wing — 

The bayonet clash, the charge, the welkin shout, 

To lead the van, and put the foe to rout ; 

While Kosciusco comes, with William Tell, 

To kiss your harp, as Freedom sighs " Farewell !" 

Or love, the theme, let Annabelle Lee 

Yie with the stars, in light and purity, 

Longfellow, too; with bay and olive crowned, 

Sacred to love with Muses all around. 

But purer than Arcadia's snowy sheen, 

To paint thy beauty, O, Evangeline ! 

Howells and Scudder, Norton, Higgcnson, 

Trowbridge, the pride of boys, at Arlington ! 



29 

Clemens and Stowe, with Sawyer, Wilson, all ; 

From Wit's wild laugh, to Love's sweet madrigal. 

Mitchell and Stoddard, Stedman, Gilder — see! 

What angels hover o'er such company ! 

Sweet Donnely, and Lloyd, and Libbey — Page — 

Curtis and Bryant lighting up an age! 

Hecker and Cooke, great Egleston and Roe, 

Bishop and Sims, Amelia* and De Bow. 

See ! See yon Capitol, its lofty dome, 

And gaze on genius in her native home — 

Bancroft and Burnett, Wilkins, Hatton — one 

In purity — thine own O, Washington ! 

Or turn again to Northern skies, and smile, 

As purity rebukes Pulitzer's vile — 

Lowell and Holmes, Walt Whitman, Whittier — say, 

Are these the nectar of the milky way ? 

God-given genius poured along the sky, 

To light and nourish souls eternally ? 

Of different magnitudes, as stars to shine. 

But in their purity O, Yirtue, thine ! 

Then wherefore bring menageries of vice, 

O, vile Pulitzer, covered o'er with lies ! 

See, see, my country ! what a inighty chain — 

Link, upon link, without a single stain ; 

Great Emraerson and Willis — Boker — count 

Thy matchless bards, and measure as they mount ; 

Then frown Columbia, on each dastard lyre I 

And blast its folly with your wonted fire ! 

Even thy daughters, once a dove-like flock, 

Now bed with Zola — bed with Paul De Coque, 

Give Byron's filth, without his Heaven-born thought. 

And pack away the very fish he caught ! 

* Not Amely (as her mother calls her), but Geo. D. Prentiss' protege. 



30 

Thus far at random, glancing o'er the scene, 

From fallen Dana, to Pulitzer mean ; 

My muse half stifled, and the night so foul 

tShe pauses for a moment, list'ning to the owl, 

In yonder tower, asking who ! who ! who ! 

And thus responsive (as the hangmen do.) 

Garrotes them one, by one — the meanest first — 

Despised by all mankind, by nature most accursed t 

On to the game ! but O, ye muses wait. 

Your wing not needed at so foul a gate. 

Yet wait expectant ; for Columbia's Press," 

Will soon command, with q,ll her loveliness. 

Till then be silent, leave mj flying pen, 

To prick balloons, and puncture puny men, 

Or changing metaphors, for all who late, 

Assailed my verses, with a viper's hate ; 

Give but a bludgeon, or a printer's " stick," 

To bang the fools, and bruise them to the quick ; 

For now in sooth, to make my verses sell ; 

Honor to vindicate, and truth as well ; 

I stir the monkeys, heavens ! how they smell ! 

THE NEW YORK WORLD. 

First Von Pulitzer, in a kitchen born, 
Calls us to breakfast with a brazen horn. 
Blowing his " own trump," ever tooting so, 
That decent people hold the nose and go. 
Like the big fiddler, torturing the show. 
He draws the mob, because his notes are " low.^^ 
Like shows on Bowery-coarse at every turn — 
He wins the vulgar, as their passions burn. 
They shout for joy, and laugh at every song, 
Vile as the brothel — vulgar as its throng. 



31 

But Booth or Barrett, listening-^if they must — 
Would turn away and sicken with disgust. 
So the Great " World,'''' intended for the slum, 
Sickens and shames us, as its numbers come. 
Bowery " breaks up, and all its hoodlums " go ; 
But the big fiddler smiles upon his bow : 
So Yon Pulitzer with his " World^'' just out. 
Pleased with himself, and smiling at his snout. 

He first, assailed — grasshopper could as well, 

The thunder harp^ where storm and tempest dwell ; 

Whose funny legs when rubbed together, make 

The grating noise that trembles from the brake. 

The grating noise of the grasshopper is caused by the friction of his legs 
on each other, or on his tail. 

But the Great Cycadia gives a louder wail, 

Kubbing Pulitzer — legs upon his tail. — 

A sounder that responds to every scrape 

As the great " World,'''' to murder or a rape. 

For poor Pulitzer finds each scandal out, 

And roots the sounder with his awful snout. 

The vulgar listen, and are heard to say, 

" Police Gazettes, and nasty stories pay — 

" Hurra, Pulitzer ! you have won the day." 

But who could ever dream that such a thins; 

Would dare to light upon an eagle's wing ? 

Or mock the lark, whose liquid measures flow. 

From Heaven's own altar to the world below. 

Go, noisy insect — sing where e'er you can, 

But talk no more charity to man. 

Tear down the bank of aqueduct, and throw 

Pulitzer's sensational, but false news that crazed the poor Italian women. 

Italian mothers to the brink of woe ; 



32 

Go make sensation, frame the story well, 

Women may weep, but still your papers sell. 

" Invent diphtheria at a watering place," 

*' Then take their money to disprove your case," 

Archbishops raid, with " bogus interview," 

To start sensation, whether false or true ; 

Dive to poor Randall's stomach, and survey 

Your image as the cancer eats away. 

Except that you are naked to the eye. 

And your great sensation but a naked lie ; 

Poor Josie Sheperd ! How you foam and swell, 

To find the boy, and make your paper sell. 

But law confounds you, for jour crooked nose, 

Was only smelling under pawn-shop clothes. — 

Your own sweet past, without a vested right. 

To bring their books and business to the light. 

Such in the past ; but to the present date. 

You coin sensation at a furious rate ; 

« The Plutocrat"—'' Chigo's Boy in jail—" 

" The bribing millionaire ;" his daughter frail, 

" The weeping mother" — How you foam and swell. 

With what minuteness all the story tell — 

Except the names — an idle nursery tale; 

Or bribed, perhaps, to cover with a veil. 

Quack doctors catch us, but your silly stufi', 

No longer fools — e'en children cry " enough !" 

Washington Evening Star, August 28, 1889. 

The New York World has recently printed a sensational " plu- 
tocrat" who had an innocent young man thrown into prison to 
keep his daughter from marrying him. It is stated that the young 
man's lawyer was bribed by the millionaire to make the prisoner 
plead guilty. Why don't the World gwe the name of the "pluto- 
crat" scoundrel? 



33 

The Herald scorned yon, told all this with more, 
And left the foundlings naked at jour door. 
But your queer proboscis pecking from each face, 
Proclaimed paternity, and flew to chase 
The towering eagle, far above them all — 
While your impunity was — being small ! 
Forgive them, Bennett, that the muses sing. 
This insect daring to assail your wing. 
One dart sujERced him, forhe met your eye, 
Fell to the brake, and saw you cleave the sky, 
Spurning his progeny — above them all, 
You mount with lofty wings the empyrial ! 

New York Herald, July 35, 1888, enumerates many of these circumstances. 

O'er many a mountain, darting to the skies, 
Lightning, or sunshine, as your pinions rise ! 
In Afric's Wilderness, or Polar seas. 
Wherever sweep the billow or the breeze ! 

One wing o'er Europe — one Columbia's strand. 
The plum6d wonder skims o'er every land. 
Speaks to them all — to every nation brings, 
A living glory, on its lightning wings ! 
But see the World — a bird of curious leg ; 
Vulture-like, screaming as it drops an egg ; 
And cries triumphant, as it breaks the shell. 
Pulitzer made it ! " come mankind and smell !" 
O, smell, Pulitzer, scrape t our little bow, 
And play the fiddler for a vulgar show ; 
Telling mankind what mountebanks have passed, 
With all their faces while the money lasts. 
Your teeming columns seemingly but " JVews,''^ 
Paid by the " Trusls,^^ you rail upon and use ; 
Poor gull's may read it — ruined families grieve, 
3 



31 

But there you mock them, laughing in your sleeve ! 

To get advertisements, you claim forsooth, 

A circulation far above the truth ; 

Scarce thirty thousand, since you cut the " craft," 

And while you boasted, every pressman laughed 1 

Even your " pool," exposed by Spitzer Shank* 

Failed to sustain it, as the issue shrank. 

To catch poor gudgeons, by a bait of lies. 

You make the boast, and hence they advertise — 

Cash thrown away; for slums, and brothels read, 

But decent people, few — ah, few indeed ! 

They snatch the Tribune, Telegram and Press — 

Still more the Herald, in their eagerness — 

And tho' you tried by cutting down the price. 

To hold them on, they left you in a trice. 

Well did you take the vacant seat of Gould, 

Another " vampire," on the thing he sold, 

Ungrateful too — for he had made the " World " — 

(On his foundation all your flags unfurled — ) 

O, gaze upon yourself, in that vile thing ! 

A greedy cormorant, without his wing — 

Piling up lucre, from the friendless wrung, 

Yile as the muck, from yonder stable flung — 

See his pinched nose, exulting in its smell — 

His only solace on the brink of hell. 

See widows weeping ; orphans, through the night, 

Crying for bread, or yearning for the light ; — 

*N.Y. -S^ar-, Aug. 21-3d. 

The small edition of the World that was finally produced at a 
late hour yesterday morning contained no mention of the action 
of that paper's sixty pressmen who resented the efi'ort of the man- 
agement to compel them to do double work without extra pay. 
False reports for bribes, the staple stock in trade of a most cor- 
rupt and debasing despotism, sustained by gigantic blackmail. 



35 

They feel his vulture nose ; it will not part, 

But probes the widow's, and the orphan's heart. 

Garrett demented — other madmen scream. 

And frey away th« vulture as they dream. 

He hears them shrieking, sees the orphan weep. 

Closes the shutter, — tries in vain to sleep — 

Would give his millions now, with all their power. 

To sleep like me, but one untroubled hour. 

Yet not for charity ; his heart still clings 

To the dread viper, writhing as it stings ; 

While other serpents, each with golden head, 

Dart from the ceiling, to his sleepless bed. 

Wretched as mean — the vilest of mankind — 

(If but Pulitzer could be left behind ;) 

He sees a thousand monsters on the wind, 

Hissing through every crevice of his ruined mind ! 

O, look upon these pictures — me behold ! 

And then on that — Pulitzer kicked by Gould ! 

But go, grasshopper, fiddle on your tail 

And do his bidding till the money fail. 

Then turn against him as you did of late. 

Only because he kicked you from his gate. 

But bent on Wanamaker's* patronage, you knelt 

To gold again — Its golden shoe-tip felt, 

A Plutocrat (if Pluto give the name) 

Go, go, Pulitzer, plunge into the flame ! 

*Wa.namaker'8 New Organ. — Large advertising patronage has secured' 
to the Floater Fund Sales Agency Postmaster-General the favor of the 
Philadelphia Press, but among the journals of the metropolis he has had no 
special friends excepting two machine newspapers whose support could 
do him little good. He has now, however, secured a mouth-piece among, 
metropolitan journals in the World. — N. T. Star. 



36 



THE WORLD'S PAN-ELECTRIC SPLUTTER. 

Great was your Pan-electric swell, but see ! 
What shameful stains on boasted purity ! • 
Each private letter — taken as you pledged, 
Not to be used, but in the case alleged, 
" Credit Mobilier " was your cause at large. 
And not a letter touched upon the charge. 
All else your ^'■writing'''' promised to return, 
" Sacred as ashes in a funereal urn !" 
You broke your promise, and your manhood fell 
Only to make a lieing paper sell. 
Take Wintersmith's — you found among a score 
Of private, playful letters — nothing more ; 
But keen upon the scent, your Honor chaff, 
You published it, to make the people laugh ; 
Tho' not a party to your crime and shame, 
The man who trusted you, must bear the blame. 
But what of that ? Your lieing paper sold, 
And what is honor when compared to gold ? 
Atkins denounced you as a " lieing knave," 
And still you wear the burning brand he gave. 
Like Judas smitten with remorse and shame. 
You trembled at the mention of his name ; 
Trembled to meet him — feared his lifted hand, 
And slunk from Congress to another land. 
Assailed the minstrel — railed upon his verse, 
And stole his letters to replete your purse. 
Coarse in vulgarity — with vulture greed 
To sell the Worlds comparing him to Tweed ; 
Said that he stole an envelope forsooth, 
Because he sent within 't, the naked truth, 
Sent to reprove you, for a batch of lies, 



I 



37 

And hurled his lightning on your cringing eyes;* 

Bunked in a cotton shed, with rats and mice, 

St. Louis found you all alive with lice ! 

Took up your worthless carcass — washed it clean — 

Had washed within, but found your soul too mean — 

Dressed you in "slop-shop," and your cunning found 

A brainy fellow — bright, but, on the ground — 

His pen you hired, and a paper made, 

Appealing to the slums of every grade ; 

We're popular, perhap — so mote it be. 

Till kicked and driven thence by decency. 

Blood on your skirts,:}: you fled to Gotham's slum, 

Paying high court to brothel and to " bum !" 

Eaised a great splutter — sold your filthy sheet — 

By pandering to the vile upon the street — 

But honor scorned it — as the meanest should — ^^ 

All covered o'er with villainy and blood ! 

Such the vile creature (passing all belief!) 

Who dares t' arraign his master for a thief! 

My past a rainbow— all my kindred great 

From olden time, with angels at the gate — 

In peace sublime — or marching on the field. 

The first to venture, and the last to yield — 

Built yonder capitol — its glory won, 

And walked the tented field with Washington ; 

Then for this mountebank without consent 

To speak my name, my motive, or intent — 

To utter them beneath his crooked nose, 

♦This letter reproved Pulitzer for saying (after the author's son, J. Har- 
ris Rogers, had declined to advertise), that he had " never achieved any 
thiug of value" — A])pletoiiS Cydopedia, the bound numbers of The Scien- 
tific American, Electric Review, and Reports of the Architect of U. S. Capi- 
tol to the contrary notwithstanding — verbum slulto — verbum sapientibus. 

X The low abuse of the St. Louis paper caused a gentleman to demand 
an explanation in their office, where they shot him dead. 



38 

Or even look upon, in poetry or prose — 
Apostate Jew and villain — ^jnst to think 
That he would dare to — O, the st — k ! — the st — k ! 

PULITZER AS A CONFIDENCE MAN. 

Dainty Apostle, did you blush for shame. 

When Daily paid to advertise his game ? 

Pimping for gamblers, nearly every day, 

You sell your columns to promote their play* 

A runner for a Pharo bank ! yes, you ! 

A gambler's runner — poor Apostate Jew ! 

To ruin homes and lead the young astray. 

You prostitute your columns as they "j^ay." 

Yet rail at " policy" — no money there. 

And hence the dust you scatter on the air, 

Denouncing games — poor Sheppard does the same, 

Yet both of you are playing but a game. 

A game of" confidence "f to make them seem — 

(Races and Faro) — fortunes in a dream. 

Reschler, a winner,:}: you describe at play. 

Only to lead " the little ones astray." 

O, better far, that " stone about your neck," 

Than fortune blasted, or yon home a wreck ! 

An insect one — a faithless drowning thing — 

The other shielded by an Angel's wing ! 

Then go with Sheppard, perch upon a limb. 

As Puck should paint you, chaffering with him. 

Judas had nerve to hang himself, and pour 

*The Herald sums up these sensational efforts of the World and denonii . 
nates it "Vampire journalism." 

tN. Y. World, July 15th, 1889, and July 13th, 1889. 

JThe Herald having exposed the swindling of Mr. Law, says that the 
Reschler winning of |39,090 blazing in The World, was a " fake " — W ho paid 
iiim to publish it ? 



39 

His bowels out upon a dreary moor ; 

But you still dash them in the face of men 

In every drop that filters from your pen ! 

Then go grass-hopper ! though your legs may call 

Some mariner from Dana's empty ball ; 

May fill the world with nastiness, and find 

The first foul scent upon the morning wind — 

May screech and scrape, till legs and sounders fail, 

Exalting legs, and fiddling for the tail, 

Yet all go laughing at your wings unfurled, 

And shout with scorn : " He calls that thing • The Wbrld.^ " 

THE N. Y. STAR. 

(Fro:u a very olde soage eatituled " Ye Doggerelle on Towser and Tike.'^) 

" Little Shank Spitzer 
Abused Pulitzer — 
Stabbed him, as he kissed behind, 
And yet his victim deemed it kind. 
Because Spitz lied upon the man 
Who tied him to his terrier Tan — 
The little thing that Atkins ran — 
Tail tucked Pulitzer — Terrier tan — 
Kicked out of Congress by an honest man ! 

See, see, " The Star " — great Caesar ! what a name. 
Dabbed on the face of villainy and shame ! 
"With all its faults, " The World " employs men. 
Used to the " tripod," and to wield the pen ; 
Read but a column, paragraph, or bar, 
Then look upon the " pot-hooks " of The Star. 
" The World " has agents perched in many a nook. 
E'en private letters open as a book ; 



40 

Some news, at least, comes flying on the wind, 

And leaves " The Star" slow plodding on behind ; 

Shank Spitzer shouting, " apples, how we swim !'• 

Look on " The World" — and then, O, look on him — 

On muck and apples ! apples rotten all, 

But better than the refuse of the stall, 

Pulitzer leading, as the devil might — 

Not the bright stars, but horrid ghouls at night — 

The lie he uttered, when the author wrote 

" On Congress paper," you were proud to quote ; 

Knowing the lie, but pimping, for a pimp, 

You come along with Yulcan's tardy limp — 

Always behind — this adverb for your name 

My muse would speak it plainly but for shame. 

No doubt you found his first acquaintance sweet. 

As Tray and Trounce when first they chance to meet. 

All other dogs had spurned your nosing kiss, 

So stand erect and be content with this, 

Herod and Pontius Pilate thus were friends — 

But here your likeness to the human ends. 

Foes to each other, they became as one. 

To curse their God and crucify His Son ! 

So Shanky Spitzer, and the Terrier Tan, 

To bite — at least an inoffensive man. 

But you were baser — tho' allowed to kiss, 

You turned upon Pulitzer with a hiss. 

" His thirty thousand papers, filled," you say, 

" With filthy women, and the boodler's pay." 

E''en ''^faithful dogs,'''' tho' once a proverb — see, 

Their name degraded by your treachery ! 

For turning on him — tho' a vulgar brute, 

You bring the very dogs to disrepute."* 

*New York Star, Aug. 19th, 22nd and 29tli, 1889. 



41 



NEW YORK SUN. 

Dana's head down — his paws upon the ground 
And hind legs up, he scarcely looked around. 
But kicked away and pushed his little ball ; 
T' avoid the gutter where it seemed to fall ; 
"'Twas very funny ; every tug and kick, 
Not only vigorous, but politic, 
For scorning principle, he " kicked " to hold 
His fragrant ball, and smelt it as it rolled. 
My song broke forth, like morning o'er the plain, 
But still he tugged, and scarcely heard the strain. 
" Yet made a humming noise, and seemed to say. 
The moon is rising. I must haste away 
To Whitelaw's stable, but before we go. 
Let's root a moment at the Poet's toe." 
He found beneath, a simple verse where " star "* 
(O horrid slip) was rhymed with '■'■ mariner.'''' 
And hummed and giggled — O, the little thing. 
Even to gaze upon an Eagle's wing ! 
Why, auctioneer, the very bells that chime, 
Pause but a moment to construct a rhyme ; 
While Sappho, Shakespeare — poets of the heart. 
Homer and Milton never knew the art ; 
Moved the whole world, with scarce a single rhyme, 
And stars came dancing to the lofty chime — 
Scarce stooped to jingle, for they knew full well, 
'Twas but the tinkling of a little bell — 
Hitched on as fringes, tinkling for fools, 
But scorned by masters of the olden schools. 
Hence the word sonnet (meaning bell) was given ; 
Its rhyme, O, Petrarch, Dana's little heaven ! 
For the poor bug would make his ball a star, 
Perfect in symmetry, by rolling far. 
♦The Sun's criticism on Arlington. 



42 



How's that for rhyme ? Perhaps you answer : " Sir, 

" The very odor of ray jaunting car 

" Forbids the rhyming of a sound like Star 

" With every other word that ends with E.." 

Dost know a Dana ? Know'st his song sublime ? — 

That twilight song ? his bell's sweet chime ? 

Built up in lofty verse, without a rhyme ? 

Ah, no, my darling, you have scarce a note 

From mocking birds — ten thousand — in his throat ! 

All, all American, and O, so wild — 

So beautiful in nature's sweetest child — 

That winds grew breathless, and the trees bent down, 

While Nature fondly clasped him as her own ! 

The very pebbles, tongues along the brook, 

Tho' wrapped in silence, every accent took, 

And distant valleys, list'ning to his song — 

The hills — the mountains — Angels bore along ! 

Then learn, poor Dan, that tho' the belfry chime, 

'Tis not the church, nor poetry a rhyme. 

Heres in cortice. The very stars, 

From laughing Yenus up to fiery Mars, 

Sang without rhyme to ancient mariners ! 

But the poor insect, on St. Peter's dome 

Thus cried to Genius in her native home : 

" You talk of glory, built on glory's hill, 

" Behold this grain of sand that grinds my bill. 

For the great Architect has only made a mill." 

How could such creature, buzzing as it flies. 

Its very buzz a rhyme, approach the skies ? 

How could you mount from yonder fragrant ball, 

To fly with Angels through the Empyreal ?^ 

Not even to a " duck, knee-high " your size. 

But a wren's joint — a basilisk's your eyes. 



43 

For " Tcnee-kigh Miah " was your ancient name, 

Tho' changed to Dan, your stature still the same ; 

Billdad,f the " shoe height^'' yet a smaller man, 

Was Sheppard, trembling for his Caravan. 

He swears by heaven that you have stolen his stuff.;}: 

O, pay it back ; Reid's stable hath enough ! 

There do you burrow — live upon his muck — 

Far better pabulum than " Shoe-heights " suck ! ♦ 

And tug beneath, but call yourself " The Sun^'' 

Close to the fetlocks of a mightier one ; 

There roll and tumble, kick your ball, and buzz, 

But spare, O, spare the pious man of U. Z. 

He loves the race track ; for its stables give 

The pabulum on which his children live. 

Stages give most, but races do the rest,]] 

To feed the little " Shoe-heights " in their nest. 

Then pay the mountebank, or in his next 

He'll spank you soundly with a scripture text. 

O, scrape with potsherd, weep upon the ground. 

And swear that Amalekites are all around. 

Stealing his asses — yours among the rest, 

From Reid's great stable, looking o'er your nest ; 

O, warn this " Shepherd king," the prince of asses. 

That Amalekites are pouring through the passes : 

Note. — Dana's crashing criticism on " Arlington," " Parthenon," and 
other poems. 

fBilldacl, the Shuhite, Job's comforter, was smaller, it seems, than the 
Prophet Nehemiah. 

JSheppard accuses Dana of plagiarism. 

II (Prom the New York World, July 13th, 1889.) " Col. Sheppard inti- 
mates to Col. Luraley that he is so busy editing the ' tip ' and gambling 
department of his newspaper, that he will not be able to accept his invita- 
tion to attend the public reception tendered Prof. John L. Sullivan." 



44 

Send him to Russia — Ben would have him there, 

To carry on diplomacy by prayer.* 

O, glorious Ben ! your kindred would not go 

To sail on Sunday in the land of snow; 

Then punish " shoe-height" — throw him to the bear — 

Another Daniel to be saved by prayer — 

There let him brouse ; his horrid braying cease, 

And the ruined, helpless South at last have peace ! 

But back to Dan — tho' once he hoped to roam, 
Cleveland despised, and Bennie kept at home. 
Still fi'om the tripod hang his little legs, 
Tho' spit upon by all^— the more he begs ; 
Or squares himself to give the latest news, 
From metaphysics, or a sleeping muse. 
O, what a buzzing in his little wing, 
When high philology he tries to sing,f 

*The author wrote to His Excellency at Bar Harbor about this appoint- 
ment and concluded thus : 

Bt'/d) 7.£yav 'A TpelSac', 
Oe'AH) Se KaSfioi' 'aeiSeiv 
'E (iaqjiiToq' Si ;^opSaig' 
Bev 'aidov M.ovov 'ex^'- 

Wonder if he caught on to my pun, Bev Haidoi', (Epic and Ionic for 
'aldriv,) — not Hell, of course, but Tartarus, alluding to the fact that his 
friends had '^caught a Tartar.^' 

The President's celebrated pun, Barharborous weather, when Blaine had 
Baid it was beastly, was evidently inspired by, and only an Anglicism of 
my Greek Be?i Haydon. 

But me ! Ah me ! Alas ! me hugh ! 
He never credits me for what I do, 
Tho' my old friends .were sacrificed to put him thro' ! 

tNew York Sun. 
A WORD TO AN EMINENT POET AND SCHOLAR OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Who could help being shocked at the improper use of language 
by that old and conservative Philadelphia journal, which the 



45 

" To realize !" such little creatures think 
Imagination gives the ball its st — k ; 
They never heard of Berkley and his school,* 
Teaching that matter, was a mental ghoul, 
Made by " creative faculties" then go 
Ye tiny bug, and root the Bishop's toe. 

Hon. G. Washington Childs, A. M., has rendered famous? If 
such an abuse had occurred in a rowdy and vulgar New York 
organ, it would have been much less surprising; but in the Public 
Ledger ! Oh, fie for shame ! 

Mr. Childs speaks of the human imagination as " the realizing 
faculty." We call his attention to the circumstance that in this 
sense the word " realize" is nothing but a bald-headed American- 
ism, unsuited to the use of a high old poet and philosopher inclin- 
ing to the British school. According to the Yankee lingo, as 
spoken in Cape Cod and Boston, a man has a realizing sense of sin- 
fulness, or he realizes that he may be in danger, or he realizes that 
his breakfast is going to be good ; but in true and pure English 
such phrases cannot be employed. One can realize an idea, that 
is, put it in execution, make it a reality. The sculptor realizes 
his conception when he embodies it in marble or bronze. The poet 
realizes his ideal when he writes a lovely and melodious epitaph. 
This, however, is not a work of the imagination, but of the execu- 
tive faculty. Do you catch on, George Washington ? 

We trust that we shall not again have occasion for criticism so 
sharp and searching as regards Brother Childs, A. M. In his 
New York paper he may be slipshod and sometimes even coarse, 
but in the Public Ledger never, never ! There only the fine pro- 
prieties, the sweet sentiments, the pathetic poeticalities, and the 
most classical expressions ought ever to be admitted. 

George W. Childs' Philadelphia Ledger, Aug. 24, 1889. 

" A poor education is a thing greatly to be regretted, but a poor 
character is far more lamentable." 

* Bish. Berkley, when at table once discussing his favorite theory, took 
in his mouth hot soup, and spluttered it out, exclaiming : "A D — n hot 
idea!" 



46 



But why this argument, conceited elf? 
In the sweet ball you " realize" yourself 
" Great admiration for the Bard" [it gibed] 
" And Parthenon we never have imbibed," 
But " O, the sweetness of this ball to me. 
[He might have said, if excrements agree.] 
" Let me ' imbibe !' — its nastiness is ecstacy ! 
" O, let me crawl once more to Grover's feet, 
" Nothing on earth was ever half so sweet ; 
" Their odor charms ; and I would gladly die, 
" To see once more forgiveness in his eye. 
" O, for another whiff; I love the smell — 
" Grove take me back, for banishment is hell !" 
But all your buzzing, coaxing, flattery vain, 
You turn upon his mighty heel again, 
Kicking, but mournful as the Man-of-U. Z, 
And murmur '■'■nothing hut an incubus^* 
O, the dead lion ! Asses' hoof were bliss. 
To being kicked at by a thing like this ! 
'Twas very funny, for his legs were up, 
Shaffed to a globule, like an acorn cup, 
Empty and worthless, but so putrid all. 
That roses withered as they reached the stall. 
O, funny thing, to name that ball — " J'Ae Smi" 
But even tumble-bugs must have their fun ! 



THE NEW YORK TIMES. 

High priest of piety, this little thing, 
Assailed with wrath the Pan-Electric " ring," 
But charged all other journals with the crime 
Of bribery — his own detested slime — 

*Dana's last fling at poor Cleveland, after trying throughout the Admin- 
istration to jump into his aim. See Puck's Cat. 



47 

For lo ! " th' Investigation " brought it out, 
That Jones alone was venal as devout ; 
Benthujsen paid him for his filthy lies, 
Insulting heaven, and the morning skies ; 
Defaming Rogers, with his wondrous "i^aw," 
And e'en the minstrel, as a " charlatan !" 
But every answer Jones refused to print. 
Because, forsooth, he found no money in't. 
Bell, too, had paid him, and he took his gold. 
Crying out " Wolf!" to terrify the fold- 
See his great fortress ! English every block. 
With blood cemented — built of British stock — 
A thing so foreign that Columbia there. 
Shrinks from a pestilence upon the air ! 
Scorning all decency, he takes a bribe, 
And now would sell her to the meanest tribe. 
Now strikes her tariff, now ^^ parochial schools,"^ 
As though Americans were Cockney fools! 
Beware, thou traitor ! for yon speakers tell,f 
Hard by your Castle, how the Bastille fell. 
" Thus far !" was thundered to the mighty deep, 
" Thus far — no farther may your billows sweep!" 
And tho' Britania rules her mountain waves, 
They cannot roll above Columbia's braves ; 
Yet Jones is here, and panders still for gold, 
Indifferent to truth — if hid or told — 
So long as money flows into his purse — 
Tho' God reprove, and all his angels curse ! 
His brethren of the " Press," when lied upon. 
Proved him the " vampire," and the meanest one.:}: 

*See FreemarCs Journal. 
t Anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. 

JThe Times accused the Press of being bribed by the Bell Company, but 
when the Congressional investigation came on, he alone was found guilty. 



48 

Taking Benthuysen's purse, and Boston gold 

To pay him for the shameless lies he told ! 

They call him " Annanias" for the liar, 

On whom St. Peter called avenging fire ! 

Tho' that one lied — the money was his own — 

He heard the curse, and fell without a groan, 

But smeared no other with his horrid slime. 

And sunk oblivious, in his awful crime. 

Then, spare the Jews, and find some other name, 

Some cast oif rag, or filthiest thing of shame, 

And pour upon the villain fires from hell — 

Not to baptize him, but the name to tell. 

While witches dance around with weird spell. 

That all mankind may shudder at their rhymes, 

Blacker than midnight, or " The Morning TiTnesP 

E'en Annanias from the thing would lean, 

T' avoid his breath, the canker and the green. 

As from the swine, or other cloven hoof 

Without a cud, and proudly stand aloof — 

Then take no name, from infidel or Jew, 

But something horrid, yet to nature true. 

Even great Shakespeare — all your English tribe — 

Scofied at Judea, with a kindred gibe ; 

But tell me, did you ever know a Jew 

T' accuse his craft, deny his note when due. 

And sob " my brethren did it, boo-woo, boo ?" 

Since Judas, never have you known but one 

So villainous — Pulitzer stands alone — 

A modern Jew, without Judea's worth, 

And walks abroad the vilest thing of earth. 

E'n Annanias owned his horrid crime — 

Took money from one Benthuysen to defame the anthor, and refused 
him Bpace to answer the villain. 



• 49 

Saloam's tower, when falling, more sublime — 

But these vile things still scent the shores of time I 

Shade of the gentle Noah, plumed with light, 
Still radiant in the very gloom of night, 
Whose " messenger " not only olive brought. 
But carried blessings, and the nations taught — 
Naomi's " messenger " to glean with E.uth, 
And bear along the golden sheaves of truth ; 
Look down upon this creature, and protest. 
That never — bright with glory, or distressed. 
Her harp on willow, hushed its heavenly song, 
Or struck by Miriam, as she danced along, 
Judea captive, or in hour of bliss. 
Could ever tolerate a thing like this — 
Much less th' apostate Jew, Pulitzer vile. 
Scenting her coasts from Jordan to the Nile ! 
O, saintly Jones ! in agony you cry 
"A venal Press." At once it nailed the lie. 
And spewed you out, the nastiest thing of all. 
Left on the pavement, where mementoes fall 
Of the vile cup, and midnight carnival ! 
Dead as poor Cleveland — England could not now 
Lift from the pavement that dishonored brow. 
O, pass it by ; but with uncovered head — 
Nulla sed bona, foi* the helpless dead ! 

N. Y. EVENING MAIL AND EXPRESS. 

But of all gamblers puffing up a " stake," 
Or praying hard, our Colonel takes ' the cake.'' 
Now in Detroit^ O, hear the preacher shout ; 
Till e'en Republicans cry, '■'■ jput him outP^ 

*Our authority is the N. Y. World, August 29th, 1889 ; and hence it must 
be taken cum grano salts, as everything else, in so "fresh" a paper. 

4 



50 

We dub him " our," for his holy lips 

Defend the North, as well as '-'- poker chips P 

Loud in her praise, from Hell's own fiery mouth, 

He hurls damnation on the " dastard South /" 

Yet rolls his awful eyes to Heaven, in prayer, 

And sees a golden crown of glory there ! 

None else would please him, for the golden gleam. 

Of harp and crown give rapture to his dream. 

But weaned a moment from his harp away, 

Curses the South, and makes religion pay. 

In war more quiet — seldom did he sing — 

Clung to his mother, and her apron string — 

But thunder hushed — the deadly charge no more. 

The reeking battle-field, and danger o'er. 

Then fought the Colonel ! then he cursed and prayed, 

Tho' every soldier scorned him as he brayed. 

Still in the war, behold, he charges on, 

Don Quixote — Rosenante — the war cloud dun ! 

A flock of sheep the only cloud he sees, 

But still he charges, for his fancies please — 

And hence we dub him Shepherd, for his sheep 

Are only fanciful ; and charging cheap ! 

A reckless gambler — pious saint with all, 

Robing a politician in the Empyrial — 

Holy of holies, God's exalted seat 

Falling, in folds, about the preacher's feet — 

Forever canting to reform mankind — 

Self constituted leader of the blind. 

Lures to the race track — every moment rife, 

With flying horses, and the gambler's life ;* 

*Great double-leaded caption that brought people to the race track Aug. 
9th, 1889 : " Brighton Races — The Programme for To-day at the Track 
by the Sea — Yesterday at Monmouth Park — Horses in Training for the 
Stakes — Proctor Knott and Loagstreet coming on for the Omnibus — The 



51 

No harm in either — eao:les on the wing — 

Till boosted — championed by this canting thing ! 

The pool shop fostering, for vulgar pay ; 

But crying "God forbid — come let us pray !" 

Abuses Bishops* — O, the little poodle ! 

Baying the moon, and dancing "Yankee Doodle !" 

Thus trained to dance, such creature never knew 

Incense from angels — wafted as they flew, 

Nor saw the beauty of an evening sky, 

In moon-kissed splendors as they floated by, 

To sell a paper, cotirts the Jockey Club, 

But gives to Gotham, Sabbaths from the IIub,t 

Gambling with S. V. White in doubtful stock. 

Railing at "m^^r^s" — "7?omi3," the very '■^ roeh,^^ 

He scorns the Bishop's gown, but oh ! not every frock ! 

Yet teaches Harrison that watery ways 

Should have devotion on the Sabbath days, 

Loud texts of Scripture howling as he goes, 

To mingle holy things with vulgar shows ; 

Brothels and races marshalled in a line, 

He throws great pearls of Heaven to the swine. 

To trample under foot, but what cares he — 

This pyramid of gambling piety ! 

Choice Stakes To-morrow— The Ballstoa Case at Saratoga— Improper 
Criticism of Fred. Littlefield's Jockeyship — Notes from the Ball Field." — 
Evening Mail and Express, Aug. 9, 1889. 

* The arrogance of the Romish hierarchy is well set forth in another col- 
umn. But the same persecution of the press has existed here, and still ex- 
ists, until every other newspaper than the Mail and Express is in mortal 
dread of the undying fires of the Inquisition. — Evening Mail and Express 
Aug. 9, 1889. ' 

tThe British idea of the Sabbath ig far in advance of that in this coun- 
try, and even the ideas of Americans^ are never realized. The Sabbath 
came over on the Mayflower, but has been in a state of decadence for the 
past generation. — Evening Mail and Express, Aug. 9, 1889. 



52 

Shade of Erastus ! where thy spirit form !* 

O, where thy wand once weird, as the storm ! 

" TK Express'' its handle, and " The Mail'' its blade; 

Covered with rust, and now in darkness laid ; 

O, see the creature, who consigns to shame, 

Your life-long labor, and a glorious name, 

Canting for place, and whining ever-more. 

To one who scorns, and kicks him from his door; 

Undaunted Kelley ! once the bright ^^ Express !"\ 

Look down a moment on its nothingness ! 

O, gaze with Brooks, upon the shadow here, 

And wonder that its name was ever dear! 

One side to vulgar ^' tips," and "races" sold, 

Another whining piety — for gold! 

While still another of the shadowy thing. 

Turns on your bishop with a serpent's sting — 

Strikes in the dark, till devils laugh aloud. 

And truth withdraws to yonder golden cloud, 

A cross above it — see " Th' Ascension " there, 

Angelo's genius burning on the air, 

While Millet's Angelus, a thing of love, 

Bows to the earth but bears the soul above! 

Aye look on these ! McMaster look, and smile, 

Then gaze a moment on the serpent's guile. 

See him still writhing 'neath a virgin's feet. 

Her form unseen, but still her presence sweet — 

While red from Paradise, with burning fang. 

He strikes the sweetest lyre that ever sang ! 

Yet strong was he, the metaphor must change, 

As ointment for the scratches, or the mange. 

Yes; Strong was he, — at least possessing powers 

*ERASTUS BROOKS. 
fTbe Mail consolidated with the' Express; produced Col. Sheppard's 
present nondescript curiosity. 



I 



53 



Like any other brnte to tread on flowers. 

He knew how Midas ceased to be a man ; 

Giving Apollo's sacred wreath to Pan, 

Yet dared the God to give him, in his mirth. 

Great lolling ears — for these were from his birth. 

Seeming to praise, he only damned the thing 

By a dull satire — cold and withering — 

Seeming to pnll me through, he kicked, alas ! 

Such was his nature; let his long ears pass; 

His heels were harmless, and his noises there, 

Tho' vulgar, passed away upon the air. 

But mercury was near Apollo's throne, 

And thus addressed him in a laughing tone. 

" Dearest of friends, once mortal — in those days, 

" I called you " Poll," and listened to your lays, 

" Admetus' flocks were feeding all around, 

" His palace rose, exulting from the ground, 

" His lordly birth had made him Prince Supreme, 

" And your sweet lyre, his very life a dream, 

" But see yon avenue ; see what towers rise, 

" With a vile donkey braying to the skies — 

" Insults your bard, yet wears the face of man, 

" And dares to give Apollo's wreath to Pan.'''' 

" The brute the' pampered in his den so long, 

" You scarce could move him, by your sweetest song. 

" What! move a monster ! trees and rivers hear, 

" But hark his braying, see the creature's ear ! 

CON ALLEGRO, 

" Incute vim ventis, aut ignibus Pol, 

V Or strike, with a blizzard, to make his ears loll ! 

" O, banish to Russia, regardless of law, 

" Where Brewin squats lower, to give him his paw, 

" As cold be his heart, and as frozen his nose, 



54 

" As Sheppard himself in the kingdom of snows ; 
" To pool a prayer meeting — his politics, prayer ; 
" And get up a race track for gamblers there ;" 
No need of Castilian, no need of the French, 
Tho' solemn he moves, as a judge to the bench ; 
But kicks at my verse, as it drives him along, 
And thus leaves a stench in the Temple of Song. 

" Si javais un bodie qui n'aillait pas, 
" Croyez je le frapperais ? Non ! non ! non ! 
" Kickapoo bodie ? Kickapoo moi ? (Kick a poor, or pauvre.) 
" Je ne suis d' D'Indre. Kickapoo quor ? (I'm not an Injun ) 
"Pourquoir? or pauvre quoir?" Which was the Colonel 
driving at? 

Les Etats Unis please copy and explain — for poor Sheppard, 
though proficient in " horse talk," is ignorant of " the language of 
the Angels — the language of all courts." 

Pana jubet TimoluB citharae subraittere cannas. 
Judiceura santique placet sententia montis 
Omnibus : arguitur tamen, atque injusta vocatur 
Unius sermone Midae. Nee Delius aures 
Humanum stolidas patitur retinere figuram, 
Sed trahit in spatium, villisque albentibus implet, 
Instabilesque illas facit, et dat posse moveri. 
Caetera sunt hominis; partem damnatur in unam, 
Induiturque aures lente gradientis aselli. 

THE N. Y. EVENING POST. 

Godkin more honest, tho' with brothel smell, 
Invites the thoughtless to a deeper hell ! 
*' To form the acquaintance of a lady, one 
*' Will furnish all the money when His doneP 
Such his advertisement, that Reid rebuked, 



I 



, 55 

When vulgar people laughed, but decent p — ked ! 
Yet the vile thing, defending " vampires," said, 
" Vice half concealed, is decent if in bed."* 
Shades of the Mighty! where jour spirits? where! 
Did Bryant rule? The Brave and Classic, there? 
Now see his Tripod — O, the gas ! the gas ! 
Not from the sewer — nothing but an ass ! 
Even poor Shurtz, as asinine as blind. 
Left nothing but his nether parts behind 1 

l' envoi. 
Then go, vile things, ephemeral as vile. 
Your hissing noises but provoke a smile. 
Your masters move you — Senators who fed 
On Rogers't genius, and supplied your bread. 
But helpless now, they see the Phoenix rise, 
And tremble as his pinion cleaves the skies! 
Parthians of old, with Xerxes on the plain. 
Shot at the sun, and lashed the foaming main ! 
Like rotten weeds they lie along the shore. 
But the bright Sun shines on forever more, 
Gilding their dust, as now the Muses do, 
"With light untainted, such a thing as you ! 
For Genius smiles upon the vulgar crowd, 
And gives a glory even to its cloud. 
Upward he mounts, with eagles in the sky. 
And races with the planets as they fly ! 

*When the shameless paper pimped for a villain, he defended it under a 
convenient "Honi soit que mal y pense" — not in the very words, but sub- 
stance of the text. 

tJ. Harris Kogers, inventor of " The Pan-Electric System," whose twenty 
odd patents he is now suing to regain from the great statesmen, who never 
gave a cent for their interest, but only the promise of their names on the 
stock, which they would never sign, but made Sub companies sign it to 
screen themselves from the public in case of failure. 



56 



r'.iL.IKT ill. 



THE TIME-HONORED PRESS. 

O, where tliat ancient school, Columbia's own ? 
Dear to her heart, and yet forever flown ! 
Still o'er her head, they shine along as true, 
Crowned as the night, but sparkling as the dew ; 
Or rather buried, in their virtues sweet, 
A thousand dew-drops lingering at her feet. 
Franklin sublime, and gentle Timon Young, 
Dearer than Timon, still at Athens sung, 
With a great galaxy along the sky. 
To teach mankind, and live eternally ! 
Columbia smiling o'er her vanished years. 
Lights up a rainbow through her falling tears — 
Falling the faster for their comrades flown. 
Her Gale, and Seaton, Abel, Blair, all gone? 
Her Rives and Prentiss, Hastings, Thurlow Weed, 
Lost in the past, with many a generous deed — 
Brooks, and Kinsella — one by one they fall, 
Each at his post, till nature claims us all. 
See Gale's great mansion, nestling in yon trees,* 
Where Genius wrote, to rule mankind, or please ; 
No longer now the quiet of the wood. 
But commerce bursting o'er it, as a flood ; 
Truesdale, and Hine, so worthy of the place. 
From flying cars, salute, with shining face. 
Electric chariots dashing o'er the scene, 
And vulgar millions gazing on its green ! 

*Eckington, near Washington city. 



57 



Hard by, Rives' mansion — still the garden there — 

The flowers he planted sweetening all the air, 

And lovely daughters — O, how passing fair ! 

There Barney* fell, and hence heroic tramp 

May sometimes visit with historic lamp ; 

Johnston, and Harris paused, his grave upon. 

When once they scented gold at Parthenon ; 

And Garland dropping from his stately wing, 

Knelt down to drink at Barney's sacred spring — 

Decatur's blood still tinges there the green. 

To prove that mightiest men are sometimes mean ; 

For Barron brave, when snubbed by one in power. 

Called to the field — that blushed with many a flower — 

Dumb Nature blushing, when the mighty try 

To blast, or drag a Seraph from the sky — 

Or Barron brave — or Pan-Electric form. 

Hurling its thunder thro' the darkling storm — 

With Gale and Rives, to live along the sky, 

" Immortal names that were not born to die !" 

Behold the " Globe !"t where Blair terrific stood. 

To Strike the vile, or vindicate the good. 

See Stilson Hutchins — O, in such a place, 

An asses hoof, a foxes cunning face '4 

Now " bribing " Parliament,§ (the latest news 

♦Commodore Barney fell at Rive's Spring, near] the Bladensburg Duelling 
Grounds, in sight of ''Parthenon Heights'' of Pan-Electric memory. 
-f Globe office, Pennsylvania avenue. 

Jit was here that Stilson Hutchins, tlie Pan-Electric promoter of the 
Lineotype in London, first published Tlie Post — thus Smithereened by the 
Boston Herald, August 21st, 1889: ''The Era of Good Feeling— Democrat 
and Republican Harnessed Together. — Mr. Frank Hatton, Stalwart Repub- 
lican, and ex-Congressman Beriah Wilkins, Stalwart Democrat, are together 
making a live Newspaper in the Washington Post. This goes to show that 
it is energy and brains, rather than politics, that make a newspaper." Poor 
Stilson ! 

f Dispatch from London, Aug. loth, 1889 — See Preface. 



58 



That 



feather to my flying Muse) 



wings 
"Bribing" in vain; for L 
That Cameron — Jennings harbored such a thing. 
Let him come back, to read the charge in print, 
E'en if a wretched " fake," with nothing in't — 
To curse thy very name, O, Lineotype ! 
His hands both trembling, as his tears they wipe ; 
O, hear him sobbing, " Wretched — wicked thing ! 
" To strike poor Pan ! — mine own the cruel sting ! 
"When pompous Senators assailed him once, 
" My columns welcomed every venal dunce, 
" Served his traducers, but refused him space, 
" To meet the mighty villains face to face — 
" Coiled in security, I struck the man, 
" O, luckless Lineotype ? O, Pan-Electric Pan ! 
" Never such villainy since time began, 
" Thou Lineotype ; but O, the glorious Pan ! 
" Electric fires beaming from afar, 
" I saw its genius rising like a star, 
" But clung to Senators — their meanest clan — 
" Poor little things, no bigger than a span, 
" Who spurned my Lineotype, and flopped into the Pan- 
" There let them flounder — Rogers laughs aloud, 
'' Hurling quick lightnings from his thunder cloud ; 
" But here, poor me 1 in foreign lands I roam, 
" Weeping in vain, my friends and fortune flown ! 
" But ere I go, here's honor to the man 
" I lied upon — O, Pan-Electric Pan ! 
" Then leave me, Lineotype — Ah ! leave me if you can, 
" Thou shirt of Nessus, burning on my back, 
" Go cling to Garland, and his graceless pack. 
" But spare poor Stilson ! for I did my best, 
" And tried to save them, chaflering with Yest ! 



59 

" Offered a thousand dollars for his stuff, 

" When " The Post" said a penny was enough — 

" But still the tricksters — each ungrateful snipe, 

" Refused to help me with my lineotjpe ! 

" My masters spurning, o'er the seas I went, 

"For British gold, to bribe a Parliament — 

" But they despising, spit upon me, too, 

" Kicked as a worthless puppy — boo-woo-boo !" 

Then go poor Stilson — scarcely worth the ink 

Dropped from the Pan, upon its meanest sink !* 

But O, ye Muses, as his odors go. 

Turn to Sylvester, with his morning glow — 

Fresh as the Horse — loftier than the skies ; 

*Poor Stilson while ridiculing in The Posi!, the Pan-Electric stock, 
as worth much less than a penny " by the bushel " — went, like 
Nichodemus by night — (as was brought out in the Pan-Electric 
investigation by Congress) to Senator Vest ; and offered him $1,000 
for his one hundredth of the stock — for here was their soft point, 
since they had depleted the Treasury before letting Vest in, and 
Hon. Mr. Raney was denouncing the "job," by great Senators as 
" highway robbery." 

Senator Vest said lately, in his testimony in Kogers' suit 
against his Senatorial partners that he never knew any thing 
about their emptying the Treasury, as preparatory to letting 
him in on the ground floor, until Mr. Raney told him how he 
had been '^ robbed" — he, also snubbed Stilson, and refused to 
take his, or somebody elses $1,000, and Stilson being put on the 
stand, said he only made this " offer in a fit of generosity !" Poor 
Stilson ! 

Poor pitiful, generous Stilson ! generous to a fault — offering at 
the rate of $100,000, for stock, not worth '' a penny a hushell" 
Poor pitiful Stilson, carrying his own or somebody else's money, to 
get Vest out of the way, and all in a "fit of generosity !" Poor 
Stilson Hutchins ! ! Poor thing ! ! 



60 

He takes the Tripod — genius in his eyes — 
Sees the whole world — his radiant columns shine — 
And lo, the fallew Post, once more divine! 
Frank Hatton with him, on his fiery car, 
Chaste as the snow, but brighter than a star ; 
While Wilkins cheers them — laughing on his way ; 
With Wit, and Wisdom, harnessed to the day ! 

iNoyes no more ; but still his Evening Stai\ 
Brighter than Yesper, sheds its beams afar ! 
Piatt retired, but his peer, Dupre, 
Gives Birmingham a new-born melody — 
Lights up " the land of coal^'' and quaifs the while, 
Rolf Saunders' wit — but not without " a smile !" 
Ah, glorious band — from Gale and Seaton down. 
Your names survive — your wit and genius flown. 
Yet all must go — a cloud sweeps o'er my page, 
As one by one they vanish from the stage. 
Hark to yon knell — like spirits passing by — 
More than a knell — a Nation's deep drawn sigh — 
Faces aghast, and tears in many an eye ; 
For ''^ SunseV lingers with inverted crown, 
And Lloyd, like Yesper, with the Sun goes down !* 
O, fare ye well ! Mt. Vernon still is here, 
The Star, The Post, to shine for many a year. 
The tomb of Washington — his grave sublime. 
But ye are with him, on the scrolls of Time ! 

Back to New York ! for all at last must go, 
Where every nation — gold and commerce flow ; 

*S. S. Cox, now lingering with pneumonia, dangerously ill, as announced 
to-day, and Lloyd, of the Tribune, will leave the editorial horizon luminous 
for many a day. The former commenced his brilliant career as an editor . 
and 'TAe Buckeye Abroad^'' inspired Clemens' Innocents Abroad; while the 
latter, long on the Iribune's staff, was even more successful as an author. 



61 

See, see, Columbia ! other stars appear — 
Thy sentinels forever, watching here. 
Each in his turn, they live along the sky. 
To guard, and light yon banners as they fly ! 
All nations here behold ! lo every land, 
From sunny Spain, to snow-girt Samicrand, 
Helvetia, Erin, Rome, and France la belle! 
Welcome great nations ! all ye watchmen hail ! 
Hail to your banners, every fold unfurled — 
JO Etats Unis, Zeitiing, The Irish World, 
Lafayette, and Steuben, Carroll still survey, 
The mighty Held and drive your foes away — 
Not England now, but armies of the vile. 
Led by yon he-goat, capering on the stile ! 
Now tainting letters — now for any fee, 
Promoting ^'- Trust " — " Combine " — Plutocracy ! 

Pulitzer leading, who shall say that crime 

May not be virtue in the coming time ? 

Yenus restored — Elusian mysteries given, 

And a goat's scent the sweetest breeze from heaven ! 

Full fifty million martyrs fell before 

Bacchus, and Yenus, in the days of yore; 

But Yenus perished, with her temples grand — 

Their ruins scattered still thro' every land — 

" Roma Posthabita " was once her home, 

But whose yon temples now — sublime as Rome ? 

Yes, Yenus perished, and a virgin bright. 

Pure as the morning, rose upon the night, 

Joseph the continent, whose infant Child, 

Looked, from his arms, upon the world and smiled — 

Gave clouds of incense ; and Cecilian song 

Entranced the Nations, as they swept along ; 



62 



Hoard upon hoard the mighty music felt, 

Threw down their arras — and to the Virgin knelt, 

Cecilia lingering, lifted souls from hell, 

Entranced the heart, and tears of rapture fell — 

— Tears penitential — grief and sorrow there, 

Left half their burden — music on the air ! 

For Heaven had opened, and the knight of old, 

Defended womanhood, as more than gold ; 

The darkest ages saw his ready spear, 

Poised in the moonlight, angels hovering near — 

Defending womanhood — to God, and Mary dear! 

But now Pulitzer, Godkin, and McDow, 

Despising purity — her daughter's bow — 

— Bow down, in reverence, to the fallen shrine, 

j^nd honor Venus, as once more divine ! 

Exalt her Cupid, in the arms of Love, 

Sending his arrow to the helpless dove ; 

For dipped in Hell, his horrid pinion flies 

— Not lifting up, but dragging from the skies ! 

Pulitzer smiles — McDow — Amelie gloat, 

And the big " World " proclaims its God — a goat ! 

NEW YOEK TRIBUNE. 

The Tribune tho' severe, was ever grand, 
For fifty years a glory in the land — 
Struck my " lost cause," as mighty giant could. 
And swept a continent with seas of blood ; 
" A higher law " than any scribbled scroll, 
To teach the freedom of the human soul! 
Freedom to man, tho' masters with the rod, 
Still clung io parchment — sacred as a God — • 
" Tear it," cried Greely, " scatter to the wind ! 
" Rather than fix a fetter on the mind — 



63 

" On the same form, defying death and loss, 

" That hung three hours bleeding on the cross — 

" Scatter it — tear it, break the tyrant's rod, 

" And fight for Freedom in the name of God ! 

" O, strike for Freedom as the mighty can, 

" And vindicate the dignity of man !" 

But Peace returned — behold the Tribune's grief — 

Its chief a bondsman, for the fallen chief,*" 

Columbia bears him thro' that awful cloud — 

Where Lincoln's fate a mighty nation bowed — 

On, on he speeds, to yonder fortress dread,f 

And lifts once more the fallen hero's head ! 

Angels look down, and rainbows fill the sky — 

A nation sobbing — tears in every eye — 

Rainbows too sacred — for the skies were fair — 

A nation's falling tears ! the sun of glory there ! 

Greely goes down, but still thy pinions shine, 

O, mighty Tribune, human, yet divine ; 

Brower and Nicholson your mighty form. 

Wing thro' the land, regardless of the storm — 

Sunshine, or shower — still those pinions flash 

Where commerce rules, or mighty armies clash. 

But most, " Sweet Home " — all heavenly virtue's hail. 

And snatch the Tribune, from the coming mail — 

Gaze on its face, all radiant for the while. 

And beaming still with Greely's gentle smile ; 

Then rise great tower — his monument sublime — 

The fairest, holiest, on the shores of time — 

Look down upon Pulitzer's horrid slum, 

And teach mankind for ages yet to come ! 

*Horace Greely went on JeflF Davis' bond, and the South ran him for 
President — what have they done for Randall, who fought for the constitu- 
tion, from first to last? O, consistency! Thou art verily a jewel ! Alas \ 
Alas ! Alas ! 

fFortress Monroe. 



64 



Saloons elected him to Congress once — 

Only to make a Spaniel of the dunce — 

Branded by Atkins, back he slunk again, 

To smut his masters, with a shameless pen — 

And pimp for gamblers ; in a golden den,* 

Behold him crawling in a charnel place, 

The vilest thing upon a corpse's foul face — 

His own dead World, like Sharp, and Tweed laid low- 

For such its fate — since thus the vilest go ! 

But where the Sun " — bright Dana as of old ? 

His measures music, and his matter gold — 

Behold him still, alas ! three score and ten, 

Have worn the diamond from his dashing pen. 

That gleamed afar — could make a nation glow — 

Or drive to madness, if it struck the foe ! 

No longer feared ; I spit upon its point — 

Useless and tardy, as his stifPest joint. 

For now, poor Daniel takes his masters' place — 

A capering he-goat with a satyr's face, 

THE N. Y. HERALD. 

O, where great Bennett ? Broadway cries, " behold ! 

" A monument of marble and of gold !" 

Alas ! what worth, and genius lie beneath — 

His mighty sword forever in its sheath ! 

Great were his faults, but yet the opal's fire 

Flashed from a flaw — its very faults expire — 

So his forgot, behold him mounting higher ! 

Leading the press, he left the old behind, 

The new was his — the majesty of mind. 

To probe, and seize, and snatch it from the very wind- 

♦Maison D'Or ou 14th street, N. Y. 



r 



65 • 

Now, in his wake, the worthless " World " behold ! 
His plan adopted, but without its gold. 
His captions, style — sensation — all afloat — 
And yet the capering of a lecherous goat ! 
Bennett's bright plume to make the ready sale, 
Snatched from his head, to deck Pulitzer's tail, 
There let it strut — the vulgar see and laugh — 
A grain of news — a thousand worlds of chaff" ! 

THE N. Y. ETENING TELEGRAM. 

See ! see the Telegram ! — what beams of light, 
A boreal crown — as Pan-Electric bright — 
No Garland there with Harris, Atkins, Young, 
Nor Johnstons' banner to the breezes flung ; 
No genius fettered — pinioned to the ground, 
By politicians chaffering around ; 
But genius, fortune, moving side by side, 
Business to start, and enterprise to guide ! 
Its essence news, its dignity sublime. 
Outstripping e'en the fiery wings of Time ! 
London at daylight — sees its pinions part — 
' But long ere day, they light up Gotham's mart^ 
Shed o'er the Herald^ beams of living light, 
And keep the rest for coming noon or night ! 
No filth obscene — no vile Pulitzer there, 
But light and beauty burning on the air — 
Earth's news, each moment, flashing from its page. 
At once the light, and glory of the age ! 
Lo other journals ! each a radiant star 
Surveys the morn, and lights the world afar! 
The " BrooUyn Eagle,'' " News,'' " The Journal," " Press "" 
Smile, with the dawn in nature's loveliness — 



66 



Dobson and Clark may meet on Brooklyn bridge, 
Bnt their bright plumes, o'er many a distant ridge- 
— Great carrier-doves, upon a mission grand 
As early morning moving o'er the land ; 
Scanned by the beautiful, with eager eyes — 
No blush upon them, but of morning skies ! 
Other great journals, weeklies, monthlies — all 
Mount with the lark, and light, the empyrial. 
Sweeter than incense to a seraph's throne, 
Leaving Pulitzer and his pimps alone ; 
For tho' in Heaven be joy, if one repent — 
Recorded there, the most minute event — 
Nothing unclean — no stench upon the air, 
Nor vampire's breath could ever enter there ! 
But snow-white pinions as they glean with Ruth, 
Return to Heaven all radiant with truth ; 
And as they scale those battlements ; bright eyes, 
And thunder — music, welcome to the skies. 
Then hail ye sentinels ! O, lead us on 
To honor, dignity, and virtue's throne — 
From yonder vulture, that the poor may share, 
For a few pence, your light and genius here ! 
— Light every path — strew flowers by the way. 
But drive, O, drive that horrid thing away ; 
Boasting its forty pages — filth and vice, 
Still covered over with his kindred lies — 
Life is too short to bother with his book ; 
Then give the latest news from every nook ; 
That toil may snatch it at a single look ! 
O, spurn the " Vampire," pandering for gold. 
And point him calmly to the days of old. 
When sweet Columbia listened to her thrush. 
And heard its minstrelsy, without a blush ! 



67 

Franklin was there, in dignity sublime, 

And o'er his " form-box," struck the den of crime ; 

Leading you nobly, O, ye mighty host, 

Scanning the " form," and standing at his post. 

Then spurn corruption ! — throw away your " stick" — 

And cry defiant " not another lick ! 

" Go, purge your columns — we are not your slaves ! 

" Our buried fathers sleep in honored graves ! 

" Franklin looks down — yon monument is ours! 

" Mothers and sisters smile in virtue's bowers ; 

" We dare not tempt them, O, thou vilest pimp, 

" Foe to mankind, and Satan's meanest imp! 

" Take back your gold and leave our spirits free ! 

" We dare not tempt our sisters' purity ! 

*' Nor even yet, were this great horror past, 

" Are we your slaves, to serve you to the last ; 

" Your boasted circulation (if the boast be tru e), 

" Brings from our blood enormous revenue — 

" Men are but men, our children and our wives, 

" Are all in poverty, and nature cries : 

" ' Down with the tyrant! strike the serpent's head ! 

" ' Our blood is cheap, but yet shall give us bread !' " 

Ye countless readers ! what to you yon thing — 

Pulitzer's vulture with unwieldy wing ! 

But would you have a book! get decent print — 

Herald or Tribune — always something in't 

For the vile World since cutting printers down, 

Has left to boys, the business they had done ; 

And hence the horrid work upon its sheet, 

Despised, unbought, and scouted Trom the street; 

But O, of all the blotted things, by far 

The vilest instance, was the Morning " Star " — 



68 

Old type, old news, old stories — every thing — 

No drop of sweetness from Pierian spring — 

All old, without the dignity of age, 

Senility and gall on every page ; 

Pulitzer scornful of the little tyke 

Turned pale and trembled at the printers' " strike," 

But screamed with laughter, when he saw his foe. 

Dressed " in new type " a day or two ago — 

— A naked woman, but with bran-new shoes, 

Deeming their gloss, and novelty The News ! 

Hark to her cries! puerpal pangs arouse ! 

The mountain labors ! see her little mouse !* 

Then press your victory, ye men of might. 

Conscious of power while — struggling for the right — 

This moment struggling, in a " strike " for breadf 

And pulling down destruction on his head — 

Printers and pressmen, stereotypers — all ! 

Strike for your hearth-stones, till the tyrant fall ; 

News dealers cheering, make the vulture see 

That honor guides your host to victory ! 

The very news boys, peddling on the street, 

A mightier army cheer you, as they greet ! 

The storm still hurtles and the billows roar, 

But see yon " Plank^''X approaching from the shore ! 

•Mons partuerit — ridiculus mus I &c. 

fThere was a deliberate attempt made night before last, and repeated 
yesterday, to take the bread out of the mouths of the families of sixty 
hard-working men, skilled laborers at that ! And the papers which found 
room for columns of vile stuff about abandoned loomen and drunken men 
who engaged in a disgraceful affray had not a word to say about the assault 
upon honest labor asking to b^paid for the full hours of labor — N. T. 
Star, Aug. 22d, 1889. 

IPresident Plank guarantees material aid to Pulitzer's strikers— iV^. F. 
Star. 



69 

" — Has landed many a thousand, and will land as many more !" 

Has taught the mighty tyrant, and can teach again — 

That cunning skill is genius, and its workmen — men ! 

That every vile Pulitzer — tho' from cotton shed ! 

Shall find its mighty rafters tumbling o'er his head ! 

His '■'■Evening World'''' to cope with dear old Ben, 

Went to the wall, or slunk into his den,* 

But still the '■'■News " reflects the grand old " Boy " — 

And millions hail it with a filial joy — 

Then hail ! all hail ! let every heart rejoice. 

That " Yampires " failed, and millions have their choice ! 

Hail, generous Ben ! When Greely saved our Chief, 

'Twas yours to give Confederates relief — 

Frank Blair commending, gallant Snead you took. 

Fresh from the wars, and read him as a book — 

Saw his great soul, and gave him work to do; 

Hence all confederate hearts have turned to you ! 

Then snatch, my countrymen, thd ''News " — a score — 

And send th' astonished boy for twenty more — 

For the fallen brave — tho' friendless — ruined — nude — 

Could ne'er be guilty of ingratitude ! 

Your " Conquered Banner," folded at your feet. 

Smiles on "The News^'' and welcomes as they meet. 

*Their Readers have Gone Over to the ■' News." — The Evening 
Sun and World were both of fungus growth, as a consequence of the rivalry 
between the main sheets before the "Newspaper Trust" was formed, and . 
they have been losing money from the start. In the case of the workmen 
the Sun and World have had to yield to their " locked-out " printers, and 
the World on Friday night lost all but about thirty thousand of its circula- 
tion on account of a strike of pressmen, and yesterday it again attempted 
to ignore the rights of these men, with the result that the edition for this 
morning will be curtailed in every respect. — N. Y. Star, Aug. 2'2d, 1889. 



70 



THE INDEPENDENT. 

Countless great journals, in thy sacred sphere, 

Holy religion ! should be honored here ; 

Each battling for truth ; but ah, how vain, 

The warring host, on yonder bloodless plain ! 

Bloodless? alas! all nature felt the wound, 

Thou crimson thorn, when Nature's Self had swooned I 

O ! dove-like peace, return to Earth once more, 

And stay the billows dashing on yon shore ! 

Or heavenly muses point to some great power — 

The press to honor — lighting up the hour ! 

Yet, not invidious, would give my pen 

Its own creed's organ as the light of men ; 

But rather, in a conscious littleness. 

Some adverse journal^ to portray " The Press.'*'' 

Take " one example to the purpose quite " — 

Beecher's great mantle with its folds of light, 

Bowen still guiding as it cleaves the skies, 

And millions hail it, as the glory flies ! 

But stay ye muses — gentler be your tread ! 

'Tis sacred dust ! behold the glorious dead ! 

And O, with reverence gaze upon his brow — 

GeniuSgdeparted — only ashes now ! 

Come with your wreath — let flowers scent the plain. 

And angels listen to your lofty strain — 

Wantons may laugh, and vulgar satyrs grin. 

But ye are sad, for BEECHER lies within ! 

And yet he would not have an idle. tear — 

To guard his memory ye linger here — 

Back to his life — let playful music ring, 

For such would please him, could he hear you sing ; 

O, spurn his foes — yet this might give a cloud, 

To yonder brow, in awful silence bowed 



n 

For he was gentle, even to a foe — 
His happiness, to stay another's woe — 
Forgiveness was his nature ; and his smile 
(Alas ! it lingered only for a while — ) 
Was brighter than a sunbeam, and conveyed 
The light of loving genius as it played. 

Alas I no saint was he, but good enough, 

For mortals made of ordinary stufi'; 

A little given — or the world belies — 

To look too tenderly on loving eyes ; 

Watched o'er his children, blessed them as they played, 

And laughed to see the winning card displayed — 

Taught them that God was merciful and wise. 

Indifferent what paste-board kings should rise, 

If Justice sat upon the social throne. 

Reflecting all the beauty of his own ; 

That honest piety might safely glance 

On graceful motion, even in the dance, ; 

Or walk on Sunday, lay aside a frown, 

And gather flowers till the sun went down. 

Aesthetic cant, cravat — in Oxford style. 

If seen obtrusive, but provoked his smile ; 

lor well he knew that dudes, affecting grace, 

Were not indifferent to Beauty's face. 

That white cravats had fallen off to find 

How roses blushed, and snow-white arms entwined ! 

Despising humbug — masters who had led — 

His fathers' follies buried with the dead. 

Rose from the vale; " O'er sun-lit mountains trod, 

" And looked thro' Nature, up to Nature's God !" 

But worse than this, perhaps he never did , 

While longer faces uglier follies hid. 



72 

Yet who shall judge a genius so sublime — 

Not the vile worm that wriggles in its slime ; 

Nor yet can common men, when genius flies, 

Follow his shadow as it cleaves the skies. 

Degraded souls who never knew the bliss 

Of innocence, nor virtue in a kiss, 

Fancy, the colors rising o'er yon storm. 

Young angels, dancing with a pulse too warm ; 

And think that every rainbow in the sky, 

Descends to earth, where horrid serpents lie ; 

Tho' far away, its plumes of beauty rest 

On ocean's bosom, by the waves caressed ; 

Sweet Andalusia^ when her beauties daze us, 

Honors the sentiment, and calls it " vagas ;" 

The Greeks, " Platonic love " — for stars, tho' bright. 

Rejoice forever in a heavenly light ; 

But vulgar natures, (O, the lilthy throng !) 

Hear only passion in a poet's song. 

In vain you plead, the dumb brute never hears 

A Pleiad sing, nor music in the spheres. 

Tell him of Beecher's genius, and his phrensy fine, 

His peopled eyes, and poesie divine, 

Ne'er to be measured, by the vulgar man, 

Walking with Satyrs, in the shades of Pan — 

But why instruct him — let Pulitzer pass, 

With coarse haw ! haw ! — the language of an ass ! — 

An asses passion in his very tone, 

Unworthy Genius on his lofty throne ! 

Let him portray poor Hamilton, who late, 

Ensnared by Cupid, yielded to his fate ; 

O, glorious morsel for the nasty thing — 

A vulture hovering with delighted wing,* 

*Pulitzer, through the latter part of August, 1889, and September follow- 
ing, noses every brothel, to spread before his readers the history of a mis- 
erable strumpet. 



73 

To scent the brothel — Poetry or Prose — 

All, all delicious to his crooked nose — 

But dare not, villain, to asperse the dead. 

Behold the crown of Glory on his head ! 

Tender respect for woman, pure as snow, 

But brighter than the comet's heavenly glow — 

Sweet as the flower that wooes the passing breeze — 

Pure as the snow-wreath bending down the trees — 

Sunshine in water, star in deepest well. 

Seen by the maiden bending o'er to spell ; 

Such was the love his tuneful heart returned, 

Pure as the incense on an altar burned ; 

His harp "bird-nesting," in the poet's hand, 

No sensual thought, could even understand ; 

But O, its fancy, on the " ragged edge," 

Of mountain cliff, could leap from ledge to ledge — 

Leaped with the lightning, as its pinion flew, 

Or kissed the morning, with her mountain dew ! 

Brutes cannot judge, except as Midas did. 

The music in Apollo's bosom hid ; 

But only see the lowest type of man. 

And give to Beecher all the hoofs of pan ! 

His loves were " vagas," charity believes — 

Naomi's* harvest — Ruth's half-stolen sheaves — 

Nature's reprisals — never mortal sin — 

Proved by the past, in, all that he had been. 

His phoenix soul could nestle with the dove. 

Yet only feel a gentle school-boy's love, 

Pure as the maiden, reading in the stars — 

The coming of her Mercury or Mars, 

Bright as Apollo, when he kissed the moon, 

Alone together in the silent noon ; 

•Boaz's motber-iu-law was evidently at the bottom of this businjess. 



74 



For they who knew him best, and loved him long. 
Still listened to the magic of his^song ; 
And tho' the storm fell furious for a while, 
He rose above it with a God-like smile; 
His song broke forth again, and genius bright, 
Threw wild auroras, to the crown of night ; 
But fell at last, as all mankind must fall, 
Honored the more — beloved and wept by all. 
And now as yonder sunset weeps alone, 
O'er thunder* mountain clinging to its own — 
The God of Glory, as affection must, 
Still lingering o'er a little heap of dust ; 
So love's devotion clings to Beecher still — 
Sad as the sun, that kisses yonder hill ! 
And ye who gaze, as dewy twilight weeps. 
And shadows climb along the mountain steeps,. 
Well may ye dream of nature's glory gone ; 
For Beecher was her brightest — bravest son ! 
Well may ye watch the setting sun with pain, 
For never shall ye look upon his like again ! 
His eye no longer revels o'er the scene, 
A part of which his mighty soul had been ; 
No more his thunder cheers the fiery van, 
Nor vindicates the dignity of man ; 
But like yon mountain — nothing to him now — 
Sleeps with the sun of glory on his brow ! 
Yet one survives — perhaps the falling dew 
May catch another rainbow from Depew, 
(And spread it o'er the mountain-top) to show 
That wit and genius linger still below. 
Climbing yon skies, thro' Beecher's glorious past. 
To span an empire beautiful as vast ; 

*Dunderberg — opposite Peekskill on the Hudson. 



75 

Beecher's own land — her very waves sublime — 

And give another monument to time — 

Depew exalted from the very town, 

Where Beecher's genius with The Sun went down ! 

But even then, the triumph would be dim, 

In many a tear still offered up to him ; 

For all would cry, (" remembrance saddening o'er each brow) 

" 'How had the brave who fell exulted now !" ' 

Thus from the vilest of the press, to him who led, 

Millions to battle, where the bravest bled — 

Led holier battles — taught mankind to feel. 

That nature's loftiest triumph was to kneel ; 

Assailed by calumny, but still sublime, 

His very name a monument to Time — 

My song beats on ; but now with weary wing, 

Must droop to Parthenon, where linnets sing ; 

But ere ye fold, indignant pinions, strike. 

If not the lieing Shank — at least his Tyke,* 

All plagues upon you, vilest of your kind,t 

*Robbie Burns' " Iwa Dogs." 

tWben the Pulitzer-ghoul E. D. Mann, of Toion Topics, began to feed on 
the dead as well as the living, Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton (September 
12th, 1889,) thus reproved Pulitzer, while speaking to a World reporter, 
and expressed the sentiments of every decent citizen of New York, and of 
our whole country : " No one believes more than I do in the freedom of 
f the press and in the mentorship of American journalism, but I cannot see 
the object of publishing smut and of blackening the reputation of the dead, 
and the living by slander. Such publications are a disgrace to our country; 
and every reputable citizen should take up arms in the crusade against 
them." 

Editorial from N. T. Sun, September 10th, 1889. — " The immediate cause 
of the unbalancing of Dr. Brown's mind and his consequent suicide after 
his return to mental health, was the dastardly conduct of the .View York 
World." 

"The 'World' Killed Him. — Dr. Brown's Faithful Wife had nursed 
him bad- to Health.— They had lived happily Fifteen Tears on a Western Farm , 



76 

Holding their noses, as you scent the wind ; 

Columbia cries, " O, leave the horrid elf — 

The more to punish — leave him with himself" — 

Let Slander's tongue, and Defamation's fang, 

Seethe, in his broth, to stimulate his slang ; 

Toad-stools, and vipers' froth, his bread imbue, 

With every poison to his nature true ; 

His meat be blindworra — his potations gall, 

While countless spiders to each mouthful fall — 

Ghosts of the murdered rise around, and cry, 

" Look up thou blind-worm, e'en without an oye, 

'* Lift up your vulture-beak, for we are here, 

" Too late for prayer — you shall not shed a tear" — 

Your name proverbial for cowardice. 

With all its darkest counterpart in lies — 

For slander, safely hid away from scath — 

For violated privacy, and broken faith ; 

For stolen letters — running from the man. 

Whose sacred life you lugged into the van ; 

For tramp-like origin — a cotton shed. 

Where vermin-covered wanderers shared your bed — 

For cunning — lifting up the vile to power — 

Unmindful of its friends in such an hour — 

But grinding down the poor, in printers here, 

Regardless of their grief, or woman's tear. 

Like Shepherd kings, who made the people's blood 

Cement for monuments o'er yonder flood — 

Your days be tenanted by shadows vile ; 

Like pyramids, that stand along the Nile ; — 

troubling no man, when a brutal and unprovoked "Sensation" made Jier a 
Widow and Mm a Suicide. — We have no hesitation in saying that the New 
York World murdered my uncle. Dr. David Tilton Brown,' said Mr. Adolph 
G. Brown, of 9 Spruce street, yesterday. He referred to the brutal article 
which appeared in the World several Sundays ago. ' The story published 
by the World was a tissue of lies from beginning to end,' said Mr. Brown." 



77 

With every meanness, villainy and crime. 

A proverb and reproach upon the shores of Time ! 

A serpent's coil now hiig yonr horrid soul ; 

Great funeral knells about your spirit toll ! 

Ten thousand scorpions crawl around your bed — 

Ten thousand vipers hiss above your head — 

Lost souls, you tempted, hover at your side, 

— Lightnings to blast and hell to open wide ! 

Halt! halt! my Muse — your painful task is done ; 

With drooping wing return to Parthenon ; 

But O, ye mightier eagles upward — on — 

Your eyrie in the skj — your leader Washington ! 

The Press! the Press ! your mightier lightnings hurled, 

Behold yon blasted thing, once called '•^The World " 

Behold its viper, writhing in his woe, 

With Death, and Hell, and Agony below — 

What! only one? the vilest of them all? 

Strike, with your pinions, till the mightier fall ! 

Suborned by lucre, see the horrid things, 

Giving Plutocracy its dragon-wings ! 

Jay Gould, and Yanderbilt, with Keen and Sage — 

The great " four hundred " of a golden age, 

"Who rule the "Vampires" — rule Columbia''s poor, 

As Oligarchy stalks from shore to shore — 

Yiler than Monarchy, to suck her blood, 

Or bury home in Conemaugau's flood ! 

— Home radiant once with innocence and joy — 

The blooming maiden, and the laughing boy ! 

Swept by a torrent — literature defiled, 

All Hell unchained, where Love and Beauty smiled ! 

O, rise, Columbia — wear thy wonted crown. 

And strike the " Yampirgs" — with their weapons down ! 

Shades of the fallen — Bennett, Warren, gone — 

Immortal Greely, Webb, and Williamson ! 



78 

For fifty years the glory of the land, 
O, shall your names be only writ in sand ? 
While Pluto reigns — plutocracy supreme, 
The Press enslaved, and Liberty a dream ? 
Never! no, never! for the Press sublime, 
Flashes unfettered as the wings of Time ; 
Tho' few be numbered in my flying song, 
Hark ! hark, the thunder as it rolls along ! 
No jealousy, nor greed, but lofty wings. 
Echo the music as their minstrel sings ; 
If thunderbolts go flying from his hand. 
Their lightnings wing them o'er his native land, 
Columbia gazing, smiles upon them all, 
And crowns with glory, as her foemen fall ! * 

*The miserable wretches herein discussed were doubtless prompted to 
their malicious attacks on the author, and his son ; by a batch of venal 
politicians, lately satirized by the author thus : 

" Some years before, where mountain streams came down, 
" Kissing, with many a bubble, Beecher's town ; 
" Jekyll had built upon the mountain crest, 
" A cranky tower, and called it " EAGLE'S NEST." ' 
Great thoughts were fledged, and up to heaven flew, 
Plumed as the eagle, with a flight as true. 
Years rolled on years, and yet those eagles came 
On wings of lightning, and with eyes of flame, 
Welcomed by learning to the heights of Fame- 
Welcomed to yonder Capitol divine, 
Founded for Science and the sacred Nine ; 
Where Marshall reigned, and mighty Story still 
Watches the gods, slow grinding at their mill, 
Where scales of justice, like the stars of ev'n. 
Kept time to God's own balances in Heaven. 
But now, alas, where Senators for gold 
Too often " tip," the very scales they hold ! 
Immortal Henry, from yon lofty dome, 
Looked upon Jekyll in his mountain home — 
Welcomed to Washington,* and bade him live 

*(Prof. Henry, — who had been the preceptor of Jekyll's father, at 
Princeton — when he saw some notice of the lad in the " Scientific Ameri- 
can," invited him to Washington, and put him in charge of the electrical 
department at the Capitol, where he saved thousands of dollars for the 



79 

With all that Fame and Happiness could give ; 
But died while blessing — yet his orphan there 
Threw thunderbolts upon the startled air, 
Till Senators, and mightier sons of fame, 
Sat at his feet and kindled at his name — 
Promised a temple, mingling with the sky, 
And science answered with a grateful sigh ! 

Jekyll despised, but conscious of the right. 

As Johnston when he shunned Confederate fight — 

Onl}' one path to even justice saw — 

Defied their power, and invoked the law, 

Made all defendants, charged them to a man, 

And thus in simple phrase his bill began : 

" Humbly beseeching, please your Honor, I, 

(Jekyll) complain of fraud and treachery. 

Your orator had spent in studious toil 

His whole young life — burning the midnight oil. 

Courted sweet Nature, and had won her gracious smile. 

Her secret treasures freely had she given, 

Unknown to other men in earth or heaven — 

Not to the World this boon— 'twas given to me, 

Incapable of fraud or treachery — 

Given, your Honor, for my very blood, 

Lost, in the struggle over field and flood, 

In payment for my patrimony spent, 

Thousands on thousands, for her treasures sent ; 

But, please your Honor, as is oft the case. 

Fortune with Fame had parted in tht- chase, 

And needing funds to polish jewels found. 

Rude as the diamond taken from the ground. 

Your orator was promised glorious names, 

To beam upon them like electric flames — 

Stocks to be issued, guilded, and to shine 

Bright as the sun, and richer than the mine. 

But, please your Honor, the defendants who 

Had made these promises, their names withdrew ; 

Or ratber kept in ambush, while they sold 

Part of the treasure, pocketed the gold — 

Burnished no jewel, but began to sell 

The polished ones — complainant could as well — 

But worse than this — a single jewel found, 

Doubtful in title ; and to make it sound, 

Held a great Caucus (Jekyll now despised) 

And coached the Government, as Greed advised. 

The " Tribune " — " Sun " — the whole indignant press — 

Exposed their jobbery and littleness, 

Government, as noted in two annual reports of the architect, Edw. Clarke, 
Esq. Prof. Henry laid his hand on one of the inventions conveyed to the 
Pan-Electric Company and exclaimed (as noted in one of the Pan-Electric 
paiiiphlets), "Morse never invented anything half so ingenious or orig- 
inal." This invention is still guarded, in a manger, by the watch-dogs of 
Uncle Sam's Treasury. 



80 

Till all your orator had ever done — 

His twenty pateuts, spotless as the sun — 

Were clouded by their chaffering with one — 

Selling State riglits wherever they could sell, 

Tho' widows wept and devils laughed in Heli — 

They put vile names upon this wild-cat stock* 

And when he charged it, all began to mock." 

" Aha !" they cried, " we have you by the wrist, 

" And hold you fast however you may twisi. 

" Go to, thou dreamer ! Would you dare lo face 

" Almighty Senators, and court disgrace ?" 

" Thus, please your Honor, we have humbly shown 

" The glaring fraud, and leave it at your thione. 

PRAYERS. 

1. Humbly we pray that they may give us back 
All patents granted ere we met the pack. 

2. What yet remains upon the skull they gnawed, 
And every drop of blood obtained by fraud. 

3. Or since they own a million dollars given ;t 
Your Honor's judgment for a million even 1 

4. That we be paid whatever we have losf, 
And hence dismissed with reasonable cost. 

Thus did he pray, and O, when JUSTICE speaks 
Loud as the thunder rattling thro' yon peaks; 
Astraea's smile, and Parthenon for years, 
Struck by their villainy, and left in tears, 
Shall beam again ; for Jekyll on yon hill, 
Already hears the music of the mill ; 
Where Gods grind slowly, but retain a grist — 
Valued the more because the villains missed — 
True friends return like swallows to the eaves, 
Bright as the sunshine, thicker than the leaves, 
Charmed by her music, praising every note. 
Ten thousand linnets lingering in her throat ! 
Jekyll too sings upon his studious way — 
A golden skylark at the gate of day, 
A storm-proof petrel, rising from the sea. 
Regardless of the tempest's revelry — 
An eagle soaring when the day is told — 
His eye a diamond, and his plumage gold, 
Red from the battle, in the sunset's glow, 
While darkness settles on the world below — 
His PAN departing, but the statesmen bare. 
Trembling and gnzing on their master there 1 
And lo ! the sycophants, who licked the great. 
All shivering at his hospitable gate 1 
Yet Parthenon bestows a pitying tear 
On poor humanity degraded here !" 

♦(Instead of issuing stock on all (PAN) the inventions with their own 
names, as promised, they sold State rights in the telephone only, the only 
litigated patent and flooded the market with millions of this stuff under 
Bradley T. Johnson, and other outsiders for "cat's paws," hence the term 
" wild-cat stock." 

tlst section of the contract. 



THE PRESS'^ 



VAMPIRE PRESS/' 



IN THREE PARTS. 



INVOCATION OF "THE PRESS." 
I. ''VAMPIRE JOURNALISM." 
II. "VAMPIRE EDITORS." 
III. "THE TIME-HONORED PRESS." 



J. W. ROGERS 

OF 

PARTHENON HEIGHTS, BLADBNSBURG, MARYLAND. 

1889. 



